


Banished

by Muriel_Perun



Series: Banished [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers (2012), F/M, Loki's Lips Sewn Shut, Loki-centric, M/M, Odin's A+ Parenting, Pseudo-Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-22
Packaged: 2018-02-09 21:24:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 42,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1998348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muriel_Perun/pseuds/Muriel_Perun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Chitauri War, Odin sentences Loki to exile as a human on Midgard, in the city of New York, where he runs afoul of the Avengers again. Tony Stark makes Loki his personal project. But is exile enough to make Loki change? Or would Loki rather die than adapt to his situation?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Loki's Exile

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Catalenamara for an insightful beta.

Odin, the All-Father, struck the ground of Asgard with his staff and pronounced sentence: “For crimes against Asgard and Midgard, I banish Loki Odinson to exile on Midgard. His power and magic will be stripped from him. May he live by his wits alone in the island city devastated by his will. May he live with its people, learning to know them, learning how they suffer. He shall not leave that place, nor shall he return to Asgard. If they starve, may he starve with them, and if they die, may he die too. This is my word, the word of Odin All-Father!” The ravens Huginn and Muninn cawed in chorus, underscoring his harsh pronouncement.

At his side, Thor felt Loki stir as if to speak, heard his low chuckle. “Just as pompous as ever, isn’t he?” Loki whispered, lightly pressing his elbow into Thor’s ribs.

  
Thor looked at him incredulously. Loki was standing there in chains, listening to Odin pronounce his sentence, which everyone had thought would be death. When the sentence turns out to be exile, he risks his life again to make a joke? Thor was sick to death of Loki’s jokes and jibes, and he was in no mood to tolerate any disrespect to Father.

  
“Think well before you speak, brother,” Thor said in a low whisper. Cocking his head, Loki smiled at him and took a deep breath. “Father has not pronounced the term of the sentence. Once the word ‘forever’ leaves his lips it cannot be unsaid.” Loki’s smile faltered.

  
“Does the prisoner wish to speak?” Odin thundered.

  
With a quick glance at Thor, Loki lowered his eyes, but spoke in a voice dripping with sarcasm. “I bow to the sentence of the All-Father.”

  
Odin chose to ignore the impudence and hear the bare words. “A wise choice. Thor, you will take him to Midgard, to the very center of the place he tried to destroy, and leave him there. He is now beyond our help.”

***

  
Freed from his prison after long months of confinement, Loki wanted to saunter along, looking at everything, and taking deep breaths of fresh air. His eyes were bright, and he looked as if he were going to a round of games rather than to his punishment. Perhaps the All-Father had been too lenient, Thor thought.

  
“So, brother, I’ve been thinking—“

  
“Thinking?” asked Thor. “Please stop. When you think, people die.” Thor grabbed him by the arm and rushed him along towards Bifrost.

  
“What’s the hurry?” Loki asked, trying without success to slow their pace. “Midgard will still be there.”

  
“I should have left your gag in place as well as your chains,” Thor grumbled.

  
“About the chains—you’ll remove them before I reach Midgard? I don’t think I’ll survive very long if—”

  
“When you reach Midgard, you will no longer possess your powers, and so there will be no need of chains.”

  
Loki finally managed to wrench his arm free and stop. “But, brother, what about my face?”

  
Puzzled, Thor stopped, too. “Your face? It will not change.”

  
Loki took a step closer and spoke confidentially. “That is the problem. The people of Midgard—the people of New York—they know me.”

  
Thor remembered. Loki’s smiling face—and his defeated face—had been on television for months after the Chitauri attack. And no one who had been there would be likely to wish well to the architect of that disaster.

  
“Father’s orders are to leave you there. That is all.”

  
“But can’t we find a secluded spot? Perhaps some different clothing...?”

  
“I am tasked with leaving you at the scene of the devastation,” Thor confirmed, with a twinge of guilt that he quickly suppressed. “But there are places called ‘parks,’ open spaces where people go to play. If you make your way quickly to one of these, it might be less dangerous for you.”

  
Loki raised his eyebrows with humorous disdain. “They ‘play,’ these humans of yours?”

  
Thor grabbed his arm again and fairly dragged him along. Why did he always listen to Loki’s banter instead of just doing what he was told? “Soon they will be your humans, too. You will be as one of them.”

  
Loki’s voice was indignant. “I will not be as they are. I will still be a god.”

  
Thor huffed audibly with annoyance. “You never were a god. _We_ were never gods. They worshipped us in Midgard because they were awed by our powers, and those days are long past.”

  
Loki stopped suddenly, surprising Thor into stopping too.

  
“Brother,” Loki said, looking earnestly into his eyes. “In those days we felt like gods—surely you remember what it was like? And we were more than brothers, then, too, do you remember?” Loki’s bound hands closed on Thor’s forearm and tightened.

  
Thor did not look away. “You want me to let you go.” It was spoken as a challenge.

  
Loki smiled, but not too broadly. “Well, yes. If you took off the cuffs right now, I could just slip away.”

  
“You want me to disobey the All-Father?” Thor asked, knotting his brow in a frown.

  
Loki looked at him quizzically for a moment. Whatever he saw there made his face fall into bitter disappointment. “Oh, no, not that,” he said in mock horror, “never that.”

  
Thor broke eye contact. “The days when we meant something to each other are gone,” he said hoarsely. “They will never come again.”

  
He clamped the gag back firmly over Loki’s mouth and perp-walked him all the way to Bifrost.

 


	2. Loki's Voice

In the center of Stark Plaza, at the very foot of the tower, Thor said farewell to his brother. Loki stood, rubbing his newly unbound wrists, squinting into the sun. “The light is harsh here,” he said, subdued.

  
Thor shook his head to clear it. It had ever been thus with Loki. He took risks, did terrible deeds, and then he looked sorry, and that was all it took to make Thor want to swing his hammer and make it all right. Not this time. Not any time since Loki had murdered Coulson before his eyes and then had thrown Thor, the man he continued to call “brother,” out of the airship in a metal cage, intending his death.

  
“I must leave you...Loki.” So accustomed was he to saying “brother” to this man that the name came awkwardly to his lips. But no more. No more his brother.

  
Loki held his arms out, palms up, in a helpless gesture he had mastered long ago. “But, what can I do, brother? How can I make my way in this world? As soon as they recognize me, I will die. Surely that cannot be what Father intended?”

  
“As you are so fond of saying, he is not your father, and I am no longer your brother. And I do his will.” Tears came to his eyes, and he fought them away angrily. Why so much guilt? So many unanswered questions? What wouldn’t he give to go back in time and change things to save this little brother whom he had loved, so long and so foolishly?

  
Loki reached out and cupped his shoulder. “Thor, I—”

  
Loki could always sniff out weakness, even without his powers. Perhaps that talent would serve him well here. Or perhaps it would get him killed. Thor would know nothing of it. Heimdall, by order of Odin, would henceforth turn a blind eye to Loki’s doings, so that no one in Asgard would know if he lived or died. “Farewell, brother,” Thor said grimly, and flew straight up into Midgard’s blue sky without a backwards glance.

  
Loki watched him go, shading his eyes, and when he looked down, he was encircled by a group of people. Being unfamiliar with the styles of dress, Loki could see the variety in the group in front of him, but could only guess at the status or means of its members. Some were disreputable people with ragged clothing and tangled hair, while others wore suits and leather shoes. A few were squeezed into tight clothing resembling Captain America’s ridiculous suit. The only thing they had in common was the way they were regarding him with open suspicion that was fast turning to hostility.

  
Without thinking, Loki swiped his arm across and conjured a spell to push them away, but there was nothing in his hand. No magic, no power to draw on. He remembered the All-Father’s words: “By his wits alone....”

  
Loki smiled his most dazzling smile. “Hello. I’m new in this place. Can you help me?”

  
The first blow came from behind and spun his head around. The second knocked him down. He didn’t feel the others.

 *** 

Tony Stark was having a good day. All his days were good, because he made them that way. He did what he wanted, when he wanted—unless a new global crisis interfered with his schedule. On this day, he was deep in Candyland, his name for the astonishingly well-equipped R&D center on the top ten floors of Stark Tower, having a profound and edifying discussion with Bruce Banner about a new green propulsion system they were working on. It was years from realization, and at the moment completely theoretical, and Tony was in seventh heaven. And then Jarvis interrupted him.

  
“Pardon me, sir,” the AI said tentatively, “I don’t wish to disturb you, but....”

  
“Then don’t,” Stark retorted.

  
“But,” Jarvis continued firmly, “there is a most important matter that demands your immediate attention.”

  
Stark’s eyes snapped away from Banner. “What is it?”

  
“There is a disturbance on Stark Plaza.”

  
“Can’t the police handle it?”

  
“Perhaps, but it involves...Loki.” Even Jarvis sounded reluctant to say the name.

  
“What?” Stark ran directly into the elevator that would take him to the top floor and the bay that held his latest suit. “Deploy the new Mark 12,” he said tersely.

  
“Of course, sir, but I do not believe that Loki poses any imminent threat,” Jarvis said.

  
“Guy who tried to rule the earth? Brought an alien army down on us with big metal dragons? Yeah, no threat at all. Care to explain that?” Stark had reached the bay and was standing with his back to it and his arms outstretched as the sections of the suit snapped to around his limbs. “What’s he doing that ‘poses no threat’? Sightseeing? Feeding the pigeons?”

  
“No, sir, but he is lying face down on the pavement bleeding while a few dozen people compete for a better angle from which to kick him. I believe he could be unconscious. That is what I observe, sir, but, sadly, I am at a loss to explain it.”

  
The balcony door slid open and Iron Man flew out to begin the long descent to earth as quickly as he dared. “How did he get here? When?”

  
“Thor brought him approximately nine minutes ago.”

  
“ _Thor_ brought him here? Where’s Thor now?”

  
“He left, sir. He flew straight up the tower and went due west.”

  
Stark reached the scene and landed outside the crowd. Some people turned to watch him while others continued to strike at the figure lying at the center.

  
“Break it up,” Stark ordered. It took several tries, but eventually the crowd parted around him. As Jarvis had reported, Loki lay there, his face against the pavement, dressed as usual in forest green and brown, but without his armor. His face was bloodied, and one arm lay palm up at a weird angle. He wasn’t moving at all.

 ***

  
Loki came to slowly, with sun on his face, to the murmuring sound of people talking. The pain hit him next, a great wave of it, from every part of his body.

  
Midgard. He was on Midgard. He remembered being beaten and opened his eyes too fast. The sun stung them and he raised a hand for shade. The pain was differentiating itself now, settling into discrete areas. His head hurt, and his face, and his back and shoulders. One shoulder felt distinctly more painful than the other. He wondered how badly he was damaged. Someone large stood before him, looking down, hands on hips, framed by the blazing sun. Not Thor. One of his new enemies, perhaps.

  
“Look, I don’t mean you any harm,” he began, but all that came out was a hoarse mumble. His jaw felt as if it had been kicked, as it probably had, and the words left his brain slowly, tediously.

  
The figure spoke. “What are you doing here? I told you not to play on my block anymore, and here you are in my front yard.” It was Stark, the metal man. Loki had been noticed already, and now he would be in the Avengers’ sights. They would persecute him, he was certain, make his life a misery. If they let him live.

  
“Well? Any reason I shouldn’t beat the living crap out of you and send you back to Asgard?”

  
“I think the creatures here have done your work for you,” Loki slurred, “and I am forbidden Asgard.”

  
“Are you saying you’ve been sent down here without your powers? Here? Why? To make amends? It’s been a year.”

  
“I don’t know.” He had no interest in explaining himself to this man of metal, who could kill him, mortal that he was, with one blow. Loki rolled to his side and struggled to sit up. The pain surprised him, blossoming from his left shoulder in a wave that took his breath away, making him gasp.

  
“Why don’t I believe that? And what’s with the shoulder?”

  
Loki chose to answer the second question. “It feels...” He searched for the word. “Dislocated.”

  
“Are those the only clothes you have? You staying anywhere? Any prospects?”

  
The rapid-fire questions made Loki’s head spin. He started to speak, but the pain overwhelmed him, and he turned aside to retch miserably over the hot concrete. Stark was silent, watching him.

  
Loki finished and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “If you’ve come to gloat, please go and do it at a distance.”

  
“Are you kidding? I’m the only one standing between you and these fine people. They’d like to finish you off.”

  
Loki sighed. “So let them. I can’t live here.”

  
“You’re such a diva.” Stark held out his hand. “Come on.”

  
“What?” Loki wasn’t sure what he was being offered.

  
“You’ve a diva. And, I hate to say it, but it takes one to know one. Come on, let me get you out of here.”

  
“Why would you do that? After all, I—“

  
“Not for you. For these people. So I don’t have to run them in for murder.”

  
With his good arm, Loki reached out, and before he knew it he was rocketed away into the sky. He lost consciousness again almost immediately.

 ***

  
He awoke again after some indeterminate time had passed. The light seemed to glow with a late-afternoon mellow gold that made him think of the great palace of Asgard, where he would never set foot again. He opened his eyes. He was in the penthouse at the top of Stark Tower now, lying flat on his back on a couch while city sounds filtered up from below. Moving gingerly, he tried to raise his head and look around himself. The room looked blurry with light that hurt his eyes. His shoulder was still excruciatingly painful. His head spun. He dropped back to the pillow with a grunt.

  
“And he’s awake,” Stark said behind him.

  
They all moved into his view—the metal man, the Monster (in his human form), the woman who had tricked him, and the Hawk. The Captain walked up slowly behind them, his open face disfigured by a disapproving scowl.

  
What could Loki say to them? Hello? He had taken a great gamble and they had beaten him roundly. Now he was helpless before them. They could do anything they wanted to him, and he wouldn’t be able to stop them. He chose to stay silent.

  
“Doc, can you deal with that shoulder?” Stark asked Banner, gesturing towards Loki.

  
“Yes, but why would I? I don’t want to be his doctor.” Banner looked nervous, and Loki wondered why they thought it was a good idea to keep him in the city. It was possible that the Hulk could do as much damage as the Chitauri in one good rampage. Actually, that would be interesting to see, from a safe vantage point.

  
“Because it’s the human thing to do,” Stark countered. “To show him we’re not like him. And it’s just the shoulder. It’s not a brain transplant, although that might be a good thing.”

  
“He might scream. It could...set me off.”

  
“Then tell me how, and I’ll do it. Or plug your ears.”

  
Loki didn’t enjoy being talked about like this, as a somewhat distasteful object that had to be dealt with, but it wasn’t for the first time in his life. “What are you talking about? Why am I here?” he asked, just to assert his presence.

  
“Shut up,” Romanoff said casually.

  
Stark and Banner had apparently concluded their discussion satisfactorily. Banner was stuffing something into his ears.

  
“Okay,” the doctor said, a little too loudly, “sit up.” Loki sat, swinging his feet down to touch the floor. The room spun around him. Another wave of nausea hit him, but he swallowed and fought it until the feeling subsided. “Relax, and hold your elbow against your ribs like this. I’m going to twist your arm to put the joint back together right. It could hurt.”

  
Taking Loki’s forearm in a firm grip, he rotated the arm slowly outwards. The pain greatly increased for a moment. Then there was a small pop, and the pain subsided. Banner felt around the shoulder joint. “It’s back in,” he said. He looked at Loki. “Did that hurt?”

  
“No,” Loki lied.

  
“Too bad,” Banner said, and turned away, pulling the plugs out of his ears.

  
“So, what’s the trick?” the Captain asked with irritation. “Mr. Stark brought you into the tower where you wanted to be. What’s the trick?”

  
“No trick,” Loki said laconically, adding what was meant to look like a sincere smile. Really, these people were complete idiots. What would they do now, torture him? Throw him off the building? Bore him to death?

  
“You must admit,” said Stark, “it’s a little too good to be true, you landing right outside the tower. Right where you did the most damage. If you didn’t want to be recognized, you could have, oh, changed your clothes, grown a beard. Maybe landed in Newark.”

  
“Ask Thor,” Loki said wearily. “He brought me here.” Usually he loved bantering with these mortals, but this new body was such a distraction, every part of it screaming _pain, pain, pain_.

  
“Thor hasn’t been around,” said Barton. “How do we know this isn’t some elaborate scheme to gain control of Stark Tower?”

  
Loki didn’t bother to answer. He felt dizzy and his vision was a little fuzzy, his thoughts vague. Maybe if he closed his eyes the questioners would go away. He tried. It didn’t work.

  
“It’s a little hard to believe he’d let a bunch of ordinary people kick the crap out of him,” Stark said thoughtfully, “but I suppose anything is possible. And, I have to tell you, it did my heart good to see it.”

  
Loki just listened. They were doing it again—talking over his head as if he wasn’t there. They wouldn’t believe anything he said anyway. The absurdity of the situation made him want to laugh, except that laughing hurt.

  
“Wait a minute,” Banner said with sudden interest. “Look at his face. When the Other Guy beat him up, he didn’t look like this.” Loki had no idea what he was talking about. Look like what? “Let me check something.”

  
Banner opened a panel behind the bar and pulled out an elaborate medical kit. He squatted down by the couch and listened to Loki’s heart, looked in his ears, and shone a bright light into his eyes. All this Loki allowed with bemused condescension. He supposed there was some use in delaying being left down in the street again until darkness had fallen.

  
Banner took a smear of blood from Loki’s face, spread it on a slip of glass, and looked at it under a small microscope. Through all this, there was an interval of perhaps fifteen minutes when no one spoke to or looked directly at Loki except the Monster, but Loki knew they were all aware of his every movement.

  
After packing up the med kit, Banner, looking morose, held his glasses in his left hand and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “Doc?” Stark asked.

  
Banner sighed. “He’s human. I can’t really explain it. And he’s got a bad concussion, not to mention all the cuts and contusions that you can see. He might have internal injuries, too, for all I know.”

  
Romanoff was looking at Loki speculatively under half-lowered eyelids. She had a cold look in her eye that he didn’t like at all. “Good,” she said. “Throw him out. How many stories down is it? Let’s see if he survives.”

  
Steve Rogers stirred uncomfortably. “What I want to know is—where’s Thor? What’s the idea of leaving Loki here like this without saying anything to us?”

  
“Good question,” Stark said. “Jarvis, call Dr. Foster and ask her if she’s heard from Thor. Tell her we need to talk to him.” He looked at Loki appraisingly. “I’ve decided I don’t want to let him out of my sight until we’ve talked to Thor.”

  
“Where will we keep him?” Barton murmured darkly. “Maybe we should tell Nick Fury that he’s here and let S.H.I.E.L.D. take care of him.”

  
“No need for S.H.I.E.L.D. yet. They complicate everything. We can deal with him ourselves for now. Not many people know this,” Stark announced brightly, “but Stark Tower has a dungeon.”

 ***

  
It was the middle of the night, and Loki found himself chained to a bed in a windowless room with a reinforced metal door. Not since he was a child had he felt as helpless as now, with his pathetic, damaged, human body. It was humiliating, waiting for a verdict from these same misfits who had somehow managed to combine their forces to overcome his will and the full strength of the Chitauri army. Would they ever realize that he had become as fragile as they were and just set him free?

  
Night thoughts. In his life so far, Loki had passed many nights in anger and envy, plotting against his enemies, or planning pranks against friends that often turned them into enemies. Now, not for the first time, he raged against Odin, against Thor, against himself. What a fool he had been to trust the Chitauri to prevail! They were mindless creatures, mere machines with force but no cunning, programmed to fight and unafraid of dying. Stark and his friends had out-strategized them, and he, Loki, who wanted to be a king—he had paid little attention to the battle, thinking it already won. He had wasted time trading jibes with Stark and Thor, assuming that the Monster would sow chaos everywhere instead of favoring one side over the other, and finally vanquishing him.

  
He was on Midgard, trapped in a broken body, bereft of magic, surrounded by enemies. But he still lived. Odin should have executed him as he had planned. Frigga had begged for Loki’s life, he was sure of it. She had made Odin soft. Sentimentality! Pride! Envy! Emotion, what a waste of time and pain! If only he could be rid of it all, of this endless dissatisfaction. But as long as he lived and could think these thoughts, he might yet prevail.

  
Despite the chains and the obsessive thoughts, the sleeping draught Banner had forced down his throat soon sent Loki into uneasy dreams.

 ***

  
In the morning they brought him upstairs again to the grand penthouse on the tower’s top floor, still in chains. They sat him in a metal chair and fastened him there so that he couldn’t move his legs or even touch his face with his hands. They had offered him nourishment and drink, which he had refused with a silent shake of his head. Now he felt weakened, as if he might stumble and fall if he tried to take a step, if they ever let him out of here.

  
More than ever through the long night, he was sorry he had accepted Stark’s offer of help. He should have let the rag-tag people kill him. He could see their point of view—they were avenging their city in their own, primitive way. At least he would have died at the hands of enemies instead of languishing here in their hands. And wouldn’t Thor have sorrowed, to know that he had left his brother to die moments after his departure? Or perhaps that had been the plan, cooked up by Odin and Thor together.

  
Now he wasn’t sure what he faced from this group. The Hawk, the woman, the Captain, and Stark were seated or standing around him in a semi-circle, looking at him grimly. He smiled—because what else could he do?—and looked from one to the other. To get more information, he needed to throw out a jibe and gauge their reactions so he could decide on a strategy.

  
“Well, well, isn’t this interesting? You all look so serious.” He mimicked horror. “Perhaps you’re about to tell me that my brother is dead. Is that it? I can only hope.”

  
Stark stepped up to the front and looked down at him, forcing Loki to look up to meet his eyes. It hurt his head to tilt up at that angle, but he met Stark’s angry stare with a steady gaze, as amused and aloof as he could make it.

  
“Thor is in New Mexico,” Stark said, “and we have some questions for you.”

  
“Do you?” Loki tried to raise an eyebrow, but it hurt too much to move his face. He had never felt this bad for so long after a beating. How could these mortals survive when their bodies healed so slowly?

  
“We want to know about the Chitauri,” Stark began. “About who led them, who gave them their orders. It obviously wasn’t you. So, who was it? Who was telling you what to do?”

  
Ah, they knew nothing about Thanos, but they had divined a presence behind the invasion. Perhaps Thor had told them that Loki had somehow learned how to use the tesseract after his fall through space. Bad enough that Thanos or his emissaries were probably seeking Loki throughout the Nine Realms; worse to invoke his name and lead him here.

  
“The Chitauri will not return because the tesseract is not here,” Loki said, trying to sound reasonable. “If they have any forces left at all, they’ve probably deployed them towards Asgard.”

  
The self-named “Avengers” traded glances. “What about Odin?” Hawk asked tightly.

  
“Odin will be prepared,” Loki said carelessly. Odin was always prepared for some war or other, and at this moment, the thought of Chitauri weapons tearing into Asgardian flesh made him smile.

  
“Who led them?” Stark asked again.

  
“I did,” Loki said innocently. “Anything else? No? Good.”

  
The Captain rolled his eyes. “I told you you’d get nothing from him.” He turned to look hard at Loki. “We’ve been talking about what to do with you.”

  
“And?” Loki asked brightly. “I do hope you’ve decided to ask me to join your little club.”

  
No one laughed, or scoffed, or even moved. Truly, he would rather talk to Thor, or even Odin, all day long, than to this grim lot. At least from his so-called family he got a reaction.

  
“We’ve talked about keeping you here as a prisoner,” Stark said, with a sidelong look at the man in the tight blue suit. Ah, there was dissention in the ranks. The Captain wanted to keep him here, he could see it written there in the high color of the man’s cheekbones and his lowered brow. And Hawk and his woman wanted worse than captivity for him. Death, said their eyes. It was possible that Stark wanted to negotiate to let him go, but he was allowing the majority opinion to prevail. It was the Captain and the Monster who most wanted to keep him in a cell, he was sure of it.

  
And Thor—Thor wasn’t even here. That meant Thor wanted him in captivity too. His brother had let the humans dictate his brother’s fate. By the Norns, he couldn’t let this pass. It was too easy for them. They were so smug and sure of their own righteousness and power—and at his expense. He would open things up a bit, sow a little chaos, increase the possibilities. The desire for a word duel fired up his blood. These unguarded idiots had given him all the ammunition he needed.

  
“I have to give you credit, you ‘Avengers,’” Loki said humbly. “You beat the Chitauri army, and you beat me. I never would have thought it possible.”

  
“Are you conceding that we should keep you here?” the Captain asked, his face intent and open as he tried to understand. What a fool. From the direction of the elevators, Loki saw Dr. Banner hesitantly enter the room. _Oh, this just got better and better._

  
“What does Thor think?” Loki asked casually.

  
“He agrees it would be for the best if you stayed here.” The Captain spoke again. _Yes, one more for imprisonment_ , Loki thought to himself. Thor must have made an impassioned case. And he, too, would pay. These mortals were too easy to read when their minds were full of conflict.

  
“It will be so nice to see him,” Loki said pleasantly. “No doubt he brings a message from the All-Father. A pardon perhaps. Or an invitation to return to prison in my adopted homeland—in chains, of course, always in chains. Ah, but wait. He sent me _here_ for my sentence. He told me I would ‘live among the mortals by my wits,’ I believe, not ‘rot in a Midgardian cellar.’ No, I’m quite certain he didn’t say that.”

  
“You’re on our world,” Hawkeye said heatedly, keeping his voice low. “We have a right to do with you anything we think is right.”

  
“How convenient,” Loki murmured. “How democratic! I’m sure you voted on it, did you not? You are, of course, just the perfect group of misfits to decide my fate.” He looked around and raised his voice a bit. “What do we have here?” he mused. “A chemical experiment from the past who doesn’t understand what anyone else says, and”—he had a sudden inspiration—“who has never yet held a woman in his arms.” The Captain’s blush rose to his eyes, and he balled his hands into fists as Loki’s shot hit home.

  
“Don’t listen to him,” Stark said. “He’s trying to get under your skin.” He rested a hand on the Captain’s blue spandex shoulder. “Is it true you’re a virgin?” he asked quietly. “We’ve got to change up your wardrobe.” Rogers shrugged off Stark’s hand and gave him a shove. _They were actually helping him,_ Loki thought. _This was too perfect._

  
Loki spoke into in the silence that fell as Stark staggered back a step. “Then there’s the man without a heart who lives in a metal can to avoid human contact, and his reputedly lovely assistant, whom I have never met. But I imagine that, because of your disinterest, your friends here have more than ‘met’ her, as has, I’ve heard, every third man in New York.” The look on Stark’s face almost broke his train of thought, so deliciously ferocious it was.

  
“Okay, that’s enough,” Stark said. “We need to—”

  
“We need to lay off each other,” Banner interrupted with irritation. “What you said to Cap was totally out of line.”

  
It was working. Loki had struck the perfect balance. They were focusing on his jibes, not yet on him. He knew that shift of focus would come, and with it would perhaps come torture or death, but at least there would be change. It was time to strike another blow.

  
“And here’s the man whose temper makes him into an irrational brute—how nice of you to join us, Dr. Banner. Your friends are discussing my fate. Imprisonment or death, I think were the choices on the table, isn’t that correct? And aren’t those your choices, too? Just wait a little while—this discussion might be illuminating for you, since the next fate they’ll be deciding is your own.” It gratified him no end when Banner’s face sagged as he looked in turn at each of his friends. He turned on his heel and staggered back towards the elevators, removing his glasses while walking in a manic zigzag. Stark went after him.

  
“Everyone get away from Loki,” Stark was saying urgently, talking over his shoulder. “Don’t shoot him, Barton”—this in response to the Hawk threading an arrow onto his bow—“just walk away. I’ll deal with him later.”

  
“ _You_ will?” the Hawk asked heatedly. “You’re the one who wants to let him leave. Why don’t the rest of us get a say?”

  
And there it was. The metal man was the only one who had voted for Loki’s freedom.

  
Only Hawkeye and the woman remained near him. The others were otherwise occupied or had turned their backs. The Captain was facing away, leaning on the bar, an incoherent choking sound coming from his throat—was he weeping? Surely not—while Stark had his arm around Banner’s shoulders and was coaxing him slowly from the room, throwing occasional unsettled glances back at Loki. That jibe at Banner had landed true. If the beast emerged and killed him, so what? He couldn’t live here, couldn’t live in that windowless cell in chains even for the rest of this brief mortal life. He would rather face Hel in her vast lair than live in thrall to these Avengers. Better to wander the bleak lands of the afterlife than to suffer impotently here, surrounded by these puffed-up fools.

  
“Clint, stand down. He’s not worth it,” Romanoff was saying, laying her hand on his arm.

  
The Hawk lowered his bow and replaced the arrow in his quiver. He and the woman exchanged glances, but they didn’t move away as Stark had ordered. It gave Loki joy to see the Hawk defy Stark and obey her, to see the bond between them. He could use that weakness to escalate this little scene into chaos right now.

  
“And then,” Loki said, looking down for a moment, “there’s the woman. That’s you, Agent Romanoff.” He met her eyes and smiled brilliantly. She met his gaze evenly, without fear, her eyes just a bit wider than usual, but her composure suited him fine, because she was not his target. “The Black Widow,” he pronounced slowly. “The professional spy—or should I say ‘slut’?” he spat. “The woman who lives by her wits. And her cunt.”

  
The word hung in the air like an exploded charge. Hawkeye took a step forward. He was breathing hard, nostrils flared, his right hand at his belt, and Loki had seen the fine steel dagger he kept there. Sharp steel—good, better than an arrow. It was to be a clean death. The woman whispered in Hawkeye’s ear, but he shook his head once, firmly. She did not touch him again, but took a step back as if setting him free. Stark and the Captain were both at the far end of the room with Banner. If he was quick, Loki had time to finish this.

  
Loki laughed. The next move was obvious. “And you,” he continued, “the far-sighted one. The Hawk. How well, how intimately, I know you. You hate me because I mastered you. I know everything about you, even how you feel about this woman. Everything you’d like to do to her. Every carnal detail of what you fear to ask her for. How pathetic, a warrior like you, to be so weak before her. You were so eager to tell me everything. How you imagined she would moan when you entered her. How her face would look when she—”

  
The point of the knife was at his chin, and he tilted his head back to welcome it. Barton’s mouth was working with unspoken words and his eyes glowed like ice. Loki felt a drop of blood wend its way slowly down his throat to pool at his collarbone, and still the woman stood back, did nothing. Loki grinned at her.

  
“You’d like to cut my throat,” he said softly, smoothly, “but you don’t have the courage to defy Stark and Thor. If only you did. You could truly be a man. You could be worthy of her.”

  
Clint’s hand was in his hair, jerking his head back roughly, and Loki laughed to know that the knife was about to spill his blood and release him from this pain and humiliation. Perhaps he would go to Valhalla because he had been killed by an enemy without feeling fear. But who wanted to fight all day and feast all night? No, more likely, for all his spell weaving, for all his deeds, he would soon see Hel, and it would suit him better than Valhalla. Perhaps Hel would let him be a revenant, and what mischief he would cause then!

  
He waited willingly for the pull against his throat, the hitch in his breath, the hot blood pulsing down his chest. An empty heart. And then, oblivion.

  
“Hey! No! Barton, stop!” Stark was there, his hands on Hawkeye’s, pushing him steadily away from Loki’s body. The hand released Loki’s hair. “You can’t do this. He can’t even fight back. He’s chained. Think about it for a second. You’re a better man than this.”

  
Barton exhaled violently. “Damn!” Loki heard the knife hit the floor.

  
“Come on,” Stark said explosively, “everyone downstairs. Now!”

  
“But what about—” the Captain gestured towards Loki.

  
“Cap, find the duct tape. It’s in a drawer in the bar. Tape this guy’s mouth shut. Tape it good and shut! Everyone else in the elevator now. Jarvis, watch the prisoner. If he moves an inch, if he does anything at all beside breathe, sound an alarm.”

 ***

  
“Why should we let him go? Run it by me again,” Rogers asked for what felt to Stark like the fourth time. They were in Stark’s personal quarters in a room Pepper called “the lounge” that they used for a meeting room, fitted out by her with soft leather couches, a large, low coffee table, and an impressive mirrored bar.

  
“Because he’s toxic,” Stark was saying with exasperation in his hoarse, nervous voice. “Because he’s a distraction. Because he knows how to push your buttons. Our buttons. If we keep him here, one of us will end up killing him for no reason at all, and then we’ll have a dead body on our hands. A dead _human_ body.”

  
Cap grimaced and shook his head, while the Hawk shrugged his shoulders. “Is anyone going to blame us for it,” Hawkeye asked aggressively, “after what he did last year?” He sat on a low stool a bit apart from the rest of the group on the sofas, his face in partial shadow.

  
“Oh, are we murderers now?” Tony asked, walking over to face Hawkeye squarely. Everyone else was silent. “If you had killed him today, Clint, what were we supposed to do, call the police? Bury him in the park? We can’t say we were killing a super-villain—he’s human, and he was chained to a chair. His only super-power is to be super-annoying. And, besides, do you know how hard it would be to get that much blood out of the carpet?”

  
“I just hate to see him go free after everything he did,” Hawkeye said moodily.

  
“Odin sent him here for punishment,” said Stark. “Maybe he knows something we don’t know. Loki’s a human being now. That alone could change him. Let’s just let it play out.”

  
Hawkeye walked over to the group and squatted down next to the arm of the sofa where Natasha was perched. “What if he hurts someone? That’ll be on us.”

  
Stark hung his head. “I know. I just don’t think we have the right to kill him. I keep saying this, partly to remind myself: Loki is human. For me, that changes things.”

  
“For me, too,” Cap said quietly. “But thinking of him out there free—it bothers me.”

  
Stark looked at the Captain and cocked his head. “Do you want to be his jailer? Because I sure as hell don’t. And Thor says he’s done.”

  
“We could give him to S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Hawkeye commented.

  
“They’ll find him soon enough if they want him. Don’t you think they already know he’s here?” Stark snapped. “If S.H.I.E.L.D. takes him they’ll torture him, and they’ll keep him locked away until he dies. Their methods—well, you all know how I feel about torture. Let’s see what kind of a human being Loki makes.

  
“Are we ready for a vote? Natasha? You haven’t weighed in yet.” Stark spoke, but everyone looked Natasha’s way.

  
She shrugged, but met no one’s gaze. “What does the doc think? What about Thor?”

  
“Banner gave me his vote, and I’m going to use it,” Stark asked, walking over to confront her. “Thor said he’d abide by our decision. Why are you avoiding the question?”

  
“Because I don’t care what happens to him,” Natasha said angrily. “I don’t care if he lives or dies, if he throws himself under a train or lives to be 95 and ends up in an old-folks’ home. I never want to see him, or think of him, again.”

  
Silence fell on the group. When they took the vote, it was unanimous.

 ***

They left him chained to the chair all day with duct tape over his mouth.  
  
No one returned to offer him food, drink, or a chance to relieve himself. He did without all three, and sleep as well, convincing himself he was above these low bodily needs. It was already late afternoon when Stark came briefly to tell him that they would let him go.

  
A small victory, but most certainly it was better than death, better than imprisonment. He had to be ready for disappointment, in case it turned out not to be true. If he thought about what he might do after his release, he would make himself vulnerable. He sat quietly and watched the cityscape grow red-gold and brilliant in the sunset, thinking of Asgard.

  
This wasn’t the first time his mouth had been stopped. Thor and Odin were fond of the mystical gag, an enchanted metal mouthpiece studded with living runes that did not even allow him to breathe through it or make the least sound. The Dwarves had made it, of course. Odin had paid them in gold, the element most beloved of Dwarves, and Thor had journeyed to Nidavellir to bring it back to Asgard—all that trouble and expense just to stop Loki’s mouth. Humiliating and painful as it was, he had been secretly, bitterly amused to know that silencing his voice—and, with it, his power—had been so vital to Odin. The only way to guard against his magic, which the All-Father feared, was to go to the crafty Dwarves for help.

  
The gag had been made especially for Loki. Because he was no friend of Dwarves, they had added a few small tortures to it, little spells, cast by obscure runes, that no one would notice besides themselves and Loki. It burned his throat to have it on, brought tears to his eyes despite all his control. And it tasted bitter, so bitter—it forced him to know the taste of defeat. Thor knew nothing of this. Thor had loved to use it, to leave him in it for hours as a joke the few times he was able to catch Loki unawares. He had even used it on Midgard to parade his captive around in front of the mortals before bringing him home to Asgard, shamed like a muzzled dog.

  
The idea of the gag had originated in another, much worse, silencing and a humiliation that would follow Loki to the end of his days. The Dwarf Brokk had silenced Loki before, with the approval of all of the Asgardian court. Loki never forgot, but thinking of it always felt like a new unmaking, when he remembered what it had been like to bring an offering of marvelous gifts, created by Dwarves he had spurred on to great deeds by his cleverness, and then to have everything end in shame, pain, blood—so much blood!—and the searing knowledge that he would always carry with him after: that he was alone on the path of his destiny. He put it out of his mind again, sealed off that memory as best he could.

  
Now he was mortal, and all it took to silence him was a few strips of sticky fabric.

 ***

  
“Now,” said Stark, “clothes, food, money, and you’re out of here.” He dumped a packet of clothing and other items on the bench and approached Loki with the key to his chains. Wearing street clothes, Steve Rogers stood by at a short distance, scowling, his arms folded over his muscular chest. At the other end of the room, Hawkeye and the woman stood listening, but not participating. Loki would have loved to throttle all of them with his bare hands.

  
Only now did Loki start to believe that they were going to let him go. He had gambled with his life, and he had won it back—at least the pathetic mortal life Odin had left him.

  
Stark picked at the corner of the duct tape and ripped it off Loki’s mouth unceremoniously. It hurt, and Loki understood that Stark had done it intentionally. He met the metal man’s gaze steadily, defiance in his eyes.

  
“Okay,” Stark said, “Thor confirmed your story about being exiled here, and here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to take these chains off, and you’re going to get dressed in these clothes. No privacy for you, because I don’t trust you an inch, got it?”

  
“But what about—“

  
“Shut up. I’m talking. If you interrupt me again or say one word out of turn the duct tape is going back on. You get these clothes, and some money, and then you go down the elevator, and you leave and never come back here again. Now, you had a question?”

  
“How can I survive unarmed?” Loki asked, feeling humiliated to be forced to bring it up. “The people out there will recognize me again, and—”

  
Rogers and Stark shared a look and chuckled softly, while Hawkeye and Natasha dissolved into audible laughter. Their derisive sniggering shocked him, took him back to his youth in Asgard and the unwelcome mirth of Thor, Lady Sif and the Warriors Three. How many times had he wanted to kill them where they stood! He waited coldly, trying to discern the cause of their amusement as his anger boiled within him.

  
“Don’t worry for a while about being recognized,” the Captain said with an annoying smirk. He fetched a pan from the kitchen and held it up for Loki to see. It showed his face in great distortion, of course, but he could see well enough the blackened eyes, the split lower lip—bleeding again now because of the tape—the cuts, the swollen cheekbone. No one would recognize him with this broken face and these castoff clothes. For the moment, if he kept his wits about him, he would be safe.

 ***

  
They let him take care of his physical needs before leaving. He had changed into the castoff clothing they had offered him, and had been forced to leave his own clothing at the tower. He imagined they would burn it, or display it as a trophy. In the guise of Midgard he felt strange to himself.

  
Stark accompanied him down in the elevator to the cavernous lobby, then, unexpectedly, put a hand out to touch his arm and stop him just as they reached the outer doors.

  
“Wait. Before you leave, I’m going to tell you a story,” Stark said coolly. “I don’t know if it will help, or if you’ll even listen, and I don’t want to hear what you think about it. I just want to tell it.”

  
Loki inclined his head in agreement. He was curious to know the motives of the only Avenger who had voted to free him.

  
“Just a few years ago, I was a blind, selfish jerk. I manufactured weapons for a living. Big weapons that I sold for lots of money that blew up lots of people. I never thought about the people my weapons blew up until, one day, a man I trusted with my life, a man who was more of a father to me than my own father, betrayed me by sending me off to another land, where I was taken captive.”

  
Stark paused for breath. “Are you listening? Should I go on?”

  
Again Loki nodded. He kept his face studiously blank, but his heart was beating a little faster. He had never thought of the lives of these Midgardians. They had always seemed so petty. And now Stark was telling him a tale of family betrayal that resonated in some ways with his own.

  
“I was trapped in a place far from home. The men who were paid to kill me failed. But I was wounded. I nearly died. I only lived because of a man who was also a prisoner, who decided to be my friend. His name was Yinsen. He fixed my wounds as well as he could, and he sacrificed his life so that I could escape. I got home, and I took back what was mine from the man who betrayed me, but that’s not the point of this story.”

  
“What is the point, then?” Loki tried to sound impatient, aloof, but he actually felt interested. “Are you saying that you are my ‘Yinsen’?”

  
Stark’s expression didn’t change. “I saved your life, but I won’t be dying for you anytime soon. The point is that the only reason I didn’t let my friends kill you is that I see some of what I used to be in you. It doesn’t make me proud to say that, but it’s true. You’re human now, not Asgardian. Being human brings a lot of baggage with it. You might be surprised to find out how much. Yinsen, my brother, he gave me a second chance, and I used it to change my life.”

  
Loki chuckled softly. This story was not what he had anticipated. “You expect me to change because of your act of mercy?”

  
“I don’t expect anything. But you’re not stupid. I just want to say to you what Yinsen said to me when he was dying, after I knew I would have a second chance.”

  
Stark waited, and Loki knew he would have to ask for it. It was a worthy story, well told. It deserved his appreciation. “What did Yinsen say to you, metal man?” he asked, with a quirk of his lips.

  
“Don’t waste it,” Stark said, and Loki could see that he was moved by the memory of those words. “Don’t waste your life.” He opened the door and held it as Loki went through. Their eyes met for a moment. “If you harm anyone in this city,” Stark added, “if you make me sorry I let you go, I’ll kill you myself. Don’t forget that either.” Without meeting Loki’s eyes again he secured the door, turned his back, and walked into the darkness of the vast lobby, heading for the elevators.

 ***

  
When the elevator doors closed behind him, Stark spoke. “Jarvis, keep watch on Loki at all times. Use ambient cameras, whatever is available. I want daily reports. My eyes only.”

  
“Yes, sir. Please give me a priority level. I might have to reallocate a few resources.”

  
“Top priority is reactor maintenance, then building security and R&D support. This is next.”

 


	3. Loki's Captivity

Loki knew little about the detailed topography of the city Odin’s “justice” had left him in, and the Avengers had refused to give him a map. But he knew a bit about the enormous park at its center, so he headed there, hoping to find cover.

  
Despite his injuries, the outdoors felt safer to him right now than a train station or other public building. In any case, he found that the closest train station was still closed for repairs since a Chitauri dragon had fallen into it, knocking out one whole wall and many internal supports. Indoors, he would have had better shelter, but outdoors, he would have more options for flight in case of a threat.

  
The air was growing colder now that the sun was down, and he was not as impervious to cold as he once was. The humans had given him some clothing to choose from, all of it previously used by others. This had put him off, and he had only donned the cast-offs reluctantly. He had chosen all black for greater camouflage, including a long coat and a woolen cap that he could pull down over his hair to partly conceal his face.

  
The park was quieter than the surrounding streets, although the sounds of passing vehicles could still be heard. From his brief visit a year before, Loki knew that it contained many winding paths, open spaces, several bodies of water, and some places he hoped were dense woods. Although his senses weren’t as keen as before, moving though dense brush was familiar to him from his experiences in Asgard.

  
As he walked through the darkness, he was conscious of groups of people here and there on the paths, in the open spaces, and under the bridges. Some were speaking loudly, laughing as if they had been consuming celebratory beverages, while others were softly murmuring or—worst of all—silently waiting. All these groups he endeavored to avoid. Any of these might wish him ill. He knew too little of this place as yet to understand the difference between harmless fools and malevolent predators.

  
He paused, partly hidden in shadows, by a small lake. Strange, flat-bottomed boats were tethered there, chained together in the middle of the water. Loki wondered why so many boats were necessary on such a small body of water that could easily be circled by foot in a few moments. An enormous statue of fine bronze was posed next to the lake. It seemed to represent a strange mammal with long ears, a little girl, another mammal wearing a hat, and several other creatures, including what looked like a large worm, all sitting upon a toadstool. It was a strange and, to his eyes, hideous creation. He wished he could forge himself a dagger out of such fine metal. Unarmed, in his weakened state, he felt vulnerable. And feeling weak made him angry.

  
He heard rather than saw them coming down the shaded path towards him—the scrape of a shoe; a soft breath. There were two of them, and they were coming for him, of that he was certain. Quietly, he withdrew into the sparse vegetation along the path and crouched to wait. They reached the place where he had stood and hesitated before coming in after him. They were both young men, large and strong-looking, although not especially agile, and they walked into the bushes clumsily, making noise. That was how Loki knew that they were armed, that they were certain they could take him. He waited, preparing himself.

  
They might have seen the pale reflection of his face, or the glimmer of an eye. In any case, they made straight for him. They were hunters, and he was the prey. Or was it the other way around? Years, centuries, of martial training under Odin’s exacting eye had not deserted Loki as his magic had. He grinned to himself and sprang at them.

  
One went down immediately under a blow from his elbow, while the other turned, pushing a hand out at him, but not as one would wield a knife. A gun flashed in the darkness, the projectile gone wildly astray, but the burst of light blinding both adversaries. Loki struck for where he guessed the attacker’s face would be and heard a grunt. He struck again, exultant to feel an enemy’s flesh yield under his hands. He twisted the hand that held the gun until he heard a scream and the crack of bone. The cold metal came into his hand, and he sprang out onto the path and flung it into the center of the lake with all his might. A dagger he needed, but he suddenly found that he hated guns. The noise, and the oily metal smell of them! Maybe he was a fool for throwing this gun into the lake, but he wanted a weapon that was quiet and subtle, not one that would deafen and blind him whenever he used it.

  
Loki left the scene quickly, silently, staying at the edge of the dark woods until he hoped his enemies could no longer follow him. He knew he had damaged one of them badly, but the other could be on his trail by now. He traveled for a long time, following circuitous and hidden paths, until the pains of his weakened body could no longer be ignored and he was sure he had not been followed. The injured shoulder ached badly, as did his fist and his elbow where he had used them to strike his foes. The Monster, in the guise of healer, had told him to “avoid exertion” because of the injury to his head. He was starting to feel dizzy again. He needed to rest.

  
He found a niche in some crumbling stonework buried in trees near a place where the sound of rushing water drowned out the city noises from outside. Wrapping himself in his coat, he dared to sleep.

 ***

  
When he awoke in daylight, the park was no longer a place where predators chased down their prey. From his hiding place, Loki could see ordinary humans walking slowly, in obvious enjoyment of their surroundings, some of them accompanied by offspring or dogs. He did not yet know what kind of reaction his appearance would evoke.

  
He was hungry and thirsty. How tiresome that this body demanded sustenance so insistently to stave off weakness! Odin, in his dotage, had ceased to eat, subsisting on nectar alone. During long vigils or bouts of study, Loki himself had lived on nectar for extended periods without ill effect. He wished he had a goblet of the stuff right now to pour new strength into his veins, but he would have to be satisfied with some human food and drink, something he could purchase with the money from the metal man.

  
When he emerged from his hiding place, he noticed people looking at him with uncertainty. He brushed the fallen leaves off his coat and pulled his hat down around his face to conceal his hair. Soon he had purchased some concoction of bread and meat and a beverage called coffee that he quite liked. It seemed to contain a mild stimulant, making him feel stronger.

  
He sat on the ground, out in the open, a bit removed from the path, eating and watching the people go by. No one spared him more than a passing glance. The uneasiness of some of those glances he attributed to their fear of his damaged face and ragged clothing. He looked like a man who had caused trouble and had been punished for it. He understood their fear, but he was also humiliated by it. It was not the type of fear he preferred to evoke.

  
When he had finished the food and drink, he put the containers aside on the grass and thought about what to do next.

  
He wondered what kinds of prospects this world held for him. Short of finding a way to do magic again, nothing appealed. Spreading chaos in this land seemed like an insignificant use for his talents and knowledge. He had been a prince, a sorcerer, feared in Asgard and across the Nine Realms, but now he was a cast-off, a damaged human who scavenged on the margins of society. He still possessed his knowledge of spells and arcane lore. Was there no way to use that knowledge in this world?

  
In the northern countries where he and the other Asgardians had been worshipped as gods a millennium before, there had been traces of magic if one knew how to look. In caves and deep places away from human habitation, on deserted islands, or on the heights of unscalable mountains, there were pockets of Earth magic where mystical creatures lived: _draugar_ , trolls, dragons, and many others. Magic clung to them that faded quickly when humans hunted them or broached their lairs. Loki had heard that now those creatures were rare, even in their former habitations, and that magic had all but passed from Midgard. In this city, where all was stone, metal, glass, concrete, where people smeared and trod all the mystery out of the land, what hope of finding a last trace of magic? Was he even capable of sensing it anymore?

  
Restless, Loki stood and headed north. He would explore this city, make it his own, and discover if anything here could be of use to him in his quest to become himself again.

 ***

  
The sun was getting low in the sky when Loki finished his exploration of Central Park. The red and yellow autumn leaves glowed gold in the late-afternoon sun. Again he was reminded of the unchanging beauty of Asgard, its golden façade. The park was a pretty place, a simulacrum of a natural landscape that had been created a human lifetime ago to satisfy whatever small craving these creatures retained for the vastness of forests, open water, craggy mountains that touched the sky, where mountain goats climbed to dizzying heights and dragons soared around sharp ridges that hid their caves, stuffed with ancient gold. No more wild, unfettered nature here; the only danger lurking in the dark came from other humans.

  
Out of every feature in the park—the constructed lakes, forests, lawns, and meadows—only a few enormous outcroppings of dark schist, sprinkled with sparkling mica, seemed to be connected to the deep recesses of the Earth. Loki stood long with his forehead against one such boulder, not sure if the energy he felt was a reflection of the sun’s heat or a distant vestige of magic lurking in the city’s concrete bowels. When he stepped away he realized that several people were staring at him, open-mouthed, as if he had done something so outside of their experience that he needed to be carefully observed. Not welcoming such scrutiny, he decided to move out into the streets and begin his exploration of other areas in the remaining daylight. He was creating a map in his mind of the city and everything in it. He would pace out the boundaries of his cage, this city, and try them in every direction. If he could not walk out of it, he would fly, or he would dig, but, eventually, he would leave this place.

  
Or perhaps Odin would tire of keeping him here and relent. Usually Thor or Frigga begged the All-Father for leniency and he granted it. Perhaps Loki had nothing to do but wait. Thor wasn’t here now, but he would come. He would tire of the Midgardian woman, and he would come to find out if his brother had been harmed, and together they would find a way for Loki to get out of here.

 ***

  
For the first few moments, Thor knew he was dreaming. He was in Asgard, beloved Asgard, out on the plains with Loki. They were supposed to be hunting, but the pleasure of galloping free in the open spaces of their beautiful land was too powerful to resist. The horses carried them willingly, snorting and tossing their heads in joy, and Loki’s face was happy and open as Thor hadn’t seen it in so very long a time. Loki was riding the lithe black horse that he had favored above all others years ago, when they were young and carefree. His hair streamed back in the wind as he glanced at Thor, a challenge in his eyes.

  
“This way, brother!” Loki called, wheeling his mount sharply to the left. “Follow me!”

  
Thor followed, but he dearly wished to overtake his brother’s smaller steed with his mount, a wide, muscular brute, too strong and wild for anyone but him to ride. But the path slanted upward, and Loki’s horse fairly flew along it, leaving Thor behind, little by little.

  
“Wait for me, brother,” he called out, but Loki and the black horse now seemed a blur of motion until something flew across his field of vision, and a loud thwack of some blow separated horse from rider, sending Loki’s body flying up into the air like a broken doll as the black horse sped away.

  
“Loki! No!” Thor screamed. In a moment he was there, throwing himself out of the saddle to kneel at his brother’s side.

  
Loki yet lived, but the dagger in his heart had made a grievous wound, and the steaming blood soaked his chest in red.

  
“Why, brother?” Loki rasped with blood in his teeth, the death rattle already in his throat. “Why have you betrayed me?”

  
Thor felt hot tears streaming down his face, choking away his words.

  
“Thor? Thor!” Someone tugged insistently at his arm, patted at his face, and he realized it was Jane, trying to awaken him.

  
“I was dreaming,” he murmured, turning to embrace her.

  
“I noticed,” she said teasingly. “It must have been some nightmare.” She touched his face with a finger. “You’re crying.” She rose up on one elbow and looked into his eyes. The room was grey in the early dawn light. “You were dreaming about Loki again, weren’t you?”

  
“Yes,” he admitted. He hoped she didn’t ask him for the content of the dream, because he did not wish to speak of it.

  
“Do you still think of him often?” she asked, laying her head on his chest.

  
“I try not to,” he said. “I can never see him again. And his lifetime will be so short—”

  
“Like mine?” Jane asked sharply.

  
“Let us not speak of that,” he said, caressing her hair. “It is not something we can change.”

  
She sighed. “But you could see your brother again.”

  
“I must not. And he is not my brother.”

  
“He _is_ your brother,” she said insistently. “You grew up together. And if you’re dreaming about him every few nights you obviously haven’t come to terms with losing him. Or with what he’s become.”

  
Now Thor sighed and chuckled deep in his throat. “Were I on Asgard, I could bring my dream to a soothsayer to divine its meaning. Here I must be content with my Lady Jane’s wise counsel.”

  
“Thor, I’m serious,” she said. “What was the dream about?”

  
He flinched from telling her, but he had resolved to be always truthful to this woman. “Loki and I were riding in Asgard. Someone threw a knife, and I saw Loki die.”

  
“Did he say anything?” Jane always asked the right question, perceptive as she was.

  
“He asked why I betrayed him,” Thor whispered. And saying it made the horror of the dream-Loki’s words stab Thor yet again in his own heart. Past times floated up into his mind and he shoved them away. There were things he could never tell Jane—shameful, twisted, horrible things that would shock her innocent mind.

  
Jane was silent a moment. “I’m sorry,” she said finally. “I don’t mean to pry, but I think your dream is telling you that you have unresolved feelings. If you want to stop having these dreams, you have to face them.”

  
Thor took her in his hands and moved her off his chest so that he could look in her face as he said these words. “And I think the dream has an altogether different meaning, my Lady,” he said gently. “I think I dream thusly of Loki because he is still alive on Midgard, and I know not what mischief he does. And because I think it would have been better if he had died.”

  
Jane’s eyes grew wide. She shook her head slowly and put a finger to his lips. “I don’t think you mean that,” she said. “And I hope you’ll figure that out soon.”

 ***

  
At sunset Loki found himself at a place called Times Square, an enormous intersection of streets crowded with cars and people. Garish lights flashed from several of the buildings, confusing his eyes. He wasn’t sure what the images and words portended until he saw an image of Tony Stark with Captain America and realized that these were people who had done noteworthy things of one kind or another. Perhaps his own image had appeared here during the brief war he had waged against Midgard with the Chitauri army. No wonder that people had recognized his face and his clothing. In his present guise, with his wounds and his rags, he had barely been noticed at all.

  
This was an interesting place, full of thieves and artists of deception. After seeing one man steal wallets from three or four others, Loki stole that man’s own wallet, just to see if he could. Another man moved plastic cups around on a makeshift table, and passers-by tried to see which cup had a silver ball under it. Except that they couldn’t see, because the man palmed the ball at the beginning and put it back under a different cup. Loki wondered why no one but he could see what was really going on.

  
He could have played tricks like that himself, better tricks, harder to unmask. During childhood he had practiced sleight of hand as a complement and aid to his magic, and an occupation to keep his hands limber and his mind sharp during idle hours. But such physical illusions alone were ridiculous child’s play. Doing them for payment was shameful, although he had no objections to stealing money out of people’s pockets, especially from those who robbed others.

  
The wallet he had stolen from the thief turned out to be well stocked. He had little enthusiasm for money, and little idea what to do with it. But it seemed that one must have money to obtain food and drink in this world, the price being commensurate with the quality and amount. And since he needed to explore the city, his prison, he would need a certain amount of money to survive while he did it. Perhaps he could even find a way to arm himself.

  
This busy area was not to his taste, and there was no trace of magic here. The fact that he had not felt one hint of magic so far was worrisome. Perhaps, with his ability to perform magic, he had also lost the gift to detect it. This fear made his search more urgent.

  
As it grew dark, he found himself on an obscure and shadowed street where the sound of voices and the eternal surge of traffic faded to a murmur. He heard his own steps whisper against the unforgiving concrete. There was someone in the shadows up ahead—two people standing together near a doorway. He continued at the same pace, but kept his senses on alert. As he approached, they stepped together out into the light of a streetlamp, and Loki laughed to himself. They were women, dressed in revealing garb, selling their bodies as wares.

  
Did Thor know that this kind of misery still existed on his beloved Midgard, as it had a millennium ago? And, if so, what did he think of it?

  
The women shrank back from him as he passed, and he thought again how humiliating it was to go about in such tattered clothing, with the marks of a beating on his face. These women were cautious, but they did not fear him as they should. It angered him.

  
There had been no sign of magic in the shadows, and Loki wondered how far he would have to go to find the sensation he sought with every cell of his being. A wave of fury lashed through him. At this very moment, Thor probably lay with his mortal woman in a comfortable bed, thinking what he would do as king in Asgard now that he and Odin had neatly disposed of the inconvenient Jotun bastard. All he had to do was wait a few years—at most, a few, mere decades—and Loki would grow old and feeble and finally die. What a splendid scheme to kill a brother without soiling your hands! But it was still murder. It was the usurpation of two thrones—Asgard and Midgard. Both should have been his. If Loki could find a way to practice magic, perhaps he could gain power in Midgard, find an army, and then—

  
He turned the corner and saw another woman lurking on the other side of the street. This one was alone, standing near the cars parked along the curb. Her eyes raked past him as if he wasn’t there. She wore short, tight pants and a top that revealed her midriff and a generous portion of her ample breasts. Her full head of blond hair swung across her back as she turned away from him.

 

He was about to continue on his way when he caught a glimpse of her profile in the streetlight. She had a small, rounded face and a supercilious expression, much like the Lady Sif. Old anger stirred, old insults, unforgivable, that had been paid back more than once but never forgotten. Sif and he had tangled, once upon a time, had traded humiliations until Loki had gone too far and lost. How Sif must have relished her part in bringing him down. But he couldn’t bear to think about that now—the pain, the blood, how the court had laughed at him, and Thor....

 

He passed as if he hadn’t noticed her, then crossed the street at the corner and stopped in the shadow of a stately old tree to watch her. Soon Sif—or at least her double—would learn not to take him so lightly.

  
Slowly, silently, he made his way towards her, moving from shadow to shadow, stalking his prey. He found her looks unappealing, but this was not about sexual attraction. Loki wanted—needed—to break someone, to visit upon another the unremitting rage at his own weakness he had felt since being banished to this place. He wanted to degrade her. And as he stalked her, he allowed himself to think, for the first time in many years, about one of his greatest triumphs—the first move he had made in his war with Sif, so many years ago.

  
Ah, the night he’d had Sif! Well, he hadn’t actually taken her, but he’d had her all the same. They had all been young then, very young, when Loki and Thor spent their days together and kept the secret of their nights from Odin and all the court. When Sif still had golden hair, before Loki had tangled with the Dwarves and brought disaster down upon himself. Before Gungnir was forged, or Mjolnir.

  
It had been the perfect plan because it played on Sif’s greatest weakness. Everyone knew how she felt about Thor. Mooning about with those enormous dark eyes in that little face with the upturned nose. Thor had told Loki that he esteemed her as a friend and was cheerfully resigned to marrying her because it was the will of Odin that they unite. But Loki knew the truth, because he had seen it in Thor’s eyes and in the way his body moved when he was around her. And, for Loki, it rankled, the thought that Thor could cast him aside so casually in favor of a woman. Had he meant so little to Thor, then? The thought of seeing Thor and Sif as an affectionate, married couple ignited a hot coal of jealousy buried deep in his gut, and it allowed him no rest.

  
So, one night, when all was still in the palace, Loki slipped into a glamour of Thor, a really good glamour with all the detail he was capable of adding, which even in those days made a formidable illusion. Thor, arms bare, a light sheen of sweat on his skin—not too much, of course—striding through the halls to Lady Sif’s chamber while the real Thor was snoring in his bed.

  
When he tapped on her door she opened more quickly than he would have thought. She had been awake, had Lady Sif. Sitting at the window fantasizing about Thor, no doubt, gazing at the stars and dreaming of his eyes. Loki had entered slowly, putting on a bit of hesitation, looking so deep into her eyes it was hard to keep from laughing and spoiling the trick. But if he did that he knew he’d never get another chance.

  
They sat together on the divan, and he told her all the things she wanted to hear from Thor, and, yes, he knew what they were, every word, as if she’d told him. And he watched her eyes grow larger and softer and her mouth relax out of its usual thin, hard line into a heart-shaped bow. Thor dared to lay a hand on her silk-clad knee, because of course she was wearing a dressing gown, having removed her armor, and her hair was loose on her shoulders, and Loki reveled in seeing her like this, as she would never have revealed herself to anyone but Thor. The proud Lady Sif! He relished how far he was about to bring her down.

  
And then Thor stood, expressing contrition for endangering her reputation, talking of leaving her alone, of going out into the wilderness to ride the plains and think of her, only her. It was a lot of rot, but it served its purpose, because then they were standing very close, and Thor put out his hand—Loki had timed this so perfectly—and slowly he closed it around the nape of her neck and pulled her to him with just the right trace of roughness—one warrior to another—and then he looked into her eyes once more and he was crushing her to him, bearing down upon her mouth with his.

  
And the kiss had lasted a moment or two longer than he thought it would—just long enough for him to congratulate himself, and to start to work his tongue into her mouth—when she shoved him away. And the look on her face, the dawning realization, then the disbelieving horror as he dissolved the glamour and stood there—Loki, in Lady Sif’s chamber, laughing his fill.

  
Then she went for her sword, of course, so he had to leave a glamour of himself to be hacked to bits, as he watched from the doorway. And when that glamour popped she began slicing away at the air around her, and the corners of the room, anywhere she thought he might be hiding. He left her then, madly destroying her own furnishings, and he found another place to sleep that night, knowing she might come to his room and try to murder him while her blood was up.

But she hadn’t, and he knew why, and that was the beauty of it. If anyone at court—anyone at all—had any inkling that Loki had been in her chamber, had kissed her—even in the guise of Thor—it would have irredeemably tarnished her. They would all have been laughing behind her back. Thor would have punished Loki somehow, maybe even killed him, but he would never have gone to her after. And she knew it. And Loki knew that she knew. It was a secret that, once revealed, would have assured their mutual destruction. So they had both kept it for all these years.

  
Sif had not liked him before, but afterwards her hatred and contempt for him knew no bounds, and that hatred had led to further disaster, finally coming between himself and Thor. He’d never understood why she couldn’t let it go. It had been such a delicious joke.

  
Loki stepped out of the darkness and stood before the woman, who gave a small start of surprise and took a few steps back.

  
“Hello,” he said, flashing her a feral grin, savoring her surprise and fear. Moving swiftly forward, he reached out and took her by the arm.

  
“Where the hell did you come from?” she asked angrily, looking him up and down, struggling in his grasp.

  
Her disrespectful tone of voice rekindled the rage he had banked while stalking her. He had plenty of money, but he suddenly resolved to take his pleasure of her without paying for it. “Kneel and service me, vile creature,” he snarled.

  
“Blow jobs are 60,” she said, trying to pull her arm from his grip. “Money up front. And let go of my arm.”

  
He took her by the throat and walked her swiftly backwards to the wall. “Dare not to speak to me in this manner, you cow,” he continued in a low and even tone with his face close to hers, lifting her by the throat so that she gagged a little. Close up she looked even more like Sif, save for the expression of abject terror on her face. Sif always looked defiant and resolute, even when she was afraid. He liked this better, much better.

  
“Okay, okay,” she said, and the fear was palpable in her choked-off whisper. “I’ll do it. Just back off for a second, will you?”

  
He stepped back and waited for her to kneel, but instead she brought her hand up sharply. He prepared to ward off a blow, but heard a hiss and then felt a horrible stinging pain in his face and eyes. He stumbled back and dropped to his knees, clawing at his face. What had she done to him? How could this woman possess the venom of Odin’s great snake? He heard her heels clicking on the pavement as she ran, and thought no more of her.

  
_Ragnarok!_ His mind screamed. The venom of the serpent, burning through his eyes. He could feel it peeling his skin off, blinding him. For a thousand years he had heard the story without believing it: he would cause the end of the world, not by his will, but through his torment. And every time Odin punished him he thought of that final punishment with grim satisfaction. One day Odin would go too far and bring down Asgard and all the gods. Was this woman the serpent?

  
He lurched to his feet and stumbled down the sidewalk. A passing group of youngsters laughed at him as if he was drunk, and he lacked the strength to punish them. When he finally reached the park, he climbed the wall and found himself in the meadow where he had eaten that morning. There were sprays of water coming from the ground, and he fell on one eagerly, rinsing his eyes again and again.

  
He found his way to the same hiding place where he had spent the previous night and curled up to sleep despite his stinging face and damp clothing. His eyes burned for hours, but by morning the pain was gone.

  
He was weak, stripped of magic, and he had made a foolish mistake. Any human with the right tools—a gun, a knife, or whatever substance that woman had sprayed in his eyes—could vanquish him, kill him, even, and he could do nothing about it. He needed to find his magic, some way that he could regain power over the physical world. He would make a plan to systematically explore this place for any trace of his former power. And when he was done, if it turned out to be impossible, then he would die.

 ***

  
Hands in pockets, Bruce Banner wandered around the hallway, looking for someone to talk to. He was at a point in his work where he really needed to bounce a few ideas off someone—ideally, Tony Stark. He had surprised himself lately, since his sojourn at Stark Tower had begun. Except for the incident with Loki a few weeks before, he had been feeling more sociable, less skittish about talking to people—all within this closed, environment, of course. And still, he had to admit, there were days when he spoke to no one besides Jarvis, and those were the best days.

  
He heard Stark talking to Jarvis from a video room through a half-open door, and stuck his head through the gap.

  
“Are you busy?” he asked, and then what he saw on the screen made him push the door all the way open and stare, surprised. “Is that...Loki?” he asked.

  
“You caught me,” said Stark. “Do me a favor and don’t tell the others. Come in and close the door.”

  
Banner did as he was asked. For a few moments they both watched an image of Loki stalking down a New York street, his hands in the pockets of his coat and his hair, which was longer now, gathered into a rubber band at the nape of his neck. He wore a watch cap that was pulled down low on his forehead. He walked out of the frame of the picture, and the screen flipped to a second camera that showed him walking at a distance.

  
“What’s he doing?”

  
Stark spared him a glance and pointed at the screen. “Walking around the city. He seems to have a system. He walks a different section every day.”

  
“What’s he looking for?”

  
“Who knows? He just walks. And when the weather is bad he spends part of the day in the library, reading, or looking at maps.”

  
Banner leaned in towards the screen. “Is he eating?”

  
Stark shrugged. “Jarvis?”

  
The majordomo spoke in his usual arch voice. “Not much. Once a day, usually. He drinks a lot of coffee. He usually sleeps in Central Park, but once a week if the weather is bad he rents a cheap room and cleans up. He buys new clothing and discards the old.”

  
“Where is he getting money?” Banner asked. “He must have spent what you gave him by now.”

  
“He steals,” said Stark. “He picks pockets. But it’s strange. He usually steals from con artists around Times Square.”

  
Banner scoffed. “Oh, the irony. He must enjoy that.”

  
“If he enjoys anything,” Stark said. “It’s tough out there.”

  
“Yeah, he looks thin,” Banner observed, “and—look, that’s weird.”

  
“What’s weird?” asked Stark.

  
“His face is all healed.”

  
“So? It’s been three weeks.”

  
“Yeah, but a couple of those cuts on his face should have left scars, but he looks just the way he did before. Still no facial hair, either.”

  
“Maybe it’s just the poor resolution of security cameras.”

  
“No, I think I could see those marks. When is he shaving? When he rents those rooms?”

  
“He isn’t, sir, as far as I can tell,” Jarvis answered.

  
“Does his species grow facial hair, the Ice Giants?” Stark asked.

  
“Unknown, sir. But I could contact Thor to find out.”

  
“That’s not the point,” Banner said, scratching his head. “He’s not supposed to be an Ice Giant anymore. In every other way that counts—his vital signs, his blood—he seems human. So why doesn’t he have a beard?”

 ***

  
In the six weeks since his arrival in Manhattan, Loki had developed a sort of daily schedule. His goals were strong in his mind, and when he worked towards them he was able to temporarily quiet the cacophony of resentment and anger in his head, the fury at his predicament that he still felt as strongly as the night he had been sprayed in the face by the prostitute with a chemical compound he now knew was called capsaicin, a simple vegetable substance. His fury had led him to be reckless and make stupid mistakes, so he was trying to channel it into the things he needed to do in order to regain himself and get out of this place.

  
He had charted about half of the city in his head now. The rest of the time, when it was raining hard or when this frail, human body pained him, he went to the library and read all he could find. He had always loved to read, and even here on Midgard it gave him great pleasure. He sampled a bit of everything in this vast repository of books and information, but his favorite subject was science. These humans separated magic from science, and he realized that it was because they did not understand the connection. They did not possess the power to control the fabric of reality with their minds, their wills. They required a physical act to obtain a physical reaction.

  
Most Asgardians were not able to perform magic either, but those with the gift, like himself, were not all that rare. Most others, like the healing women who kept the soul forge, were esteemed, while Loki was reviled, mostly because he was a man performing magic—considered one of the female arts, much like weaving. Odin himself practiced the magical arts, but, of course, as always, Odin was above reproach, no matter what tricks he pulled or what rules he broke.

  
The mortals’ books on magic were mostly a waste of time, dedicated as they were to sleight of hand. Some of these tricks were highly sophisticated and required a great deal of talent and grace to pull off. But they had little to do with what Loki considered real magical ability—and that kind of gift was always inborn. The knowledge of words, runes, spells, hexes, and all the rest of the arcane learning that Loki had accumulated, was only valuable when one possessed the power to reach within matter and change its very essence. Loki seemed to have lost that innate power. So instead of reading further about Midgardian “magic,” he read about the science of time and delved into quantum physics and chemistry, the subtle arts of combination and layering that could manipulate reality.

  
These mortals had amassed a great deal of knowledge about the structure of matter and its relationship to energy. In contrast, the so-called spell books he was able to find were full of fantastical thinking with no real application. Perhaps mortals really had no connection to magical power; perhaps they only knew it existed because of their occasional contact with the _Æsir_. Sorcery was an ability they only aspired to, and when they could not practice it, they pretended that they could.

  
Through the work of a brilliant physicist—a woman named Emily Nöther—Loki had discovered that Asgard and Midgard were different in very basic ways. This woman had proven that the laws of physics were not consistent in time and space. Although she had not known about Asgard, she had predicted its existence. Energy was not conserved in Asgard, and that allowed those who possessed the innate ability to manipulate reality to heal wounds, to disappear, to change shape, to move or create objects with their minds. Indeed, Nöther’s work explained the reason for something Loki had always known—that energy was slowly leaking from Asgard, which would one day become a black hole, an absence. Ironically, the price of magic was a slow death of energy. In Midgard, on the other hand, every action had an equal and opposite reaction, and, while, with great effort, energy could be turned into matter and vice versa, the amount of energy present was always the same.

  
It was fascinating. But it did not bode well for finding a way to use magic in Midgard. He would finish his charting of this island, but he was starting to believe that his best chance for finding magic was to seek a hidden passageway to another world, a bridge to somewhere else from which such power as he sought might be leaking through. If he were exposed to magic—to a place where magic existed—would he get his powers back again?

  
Loki had long been adept at all different aspects of _seidr_. His mother was his first teacher, and he had soon surpassed her by teasing the knowledge he wanted from other practitioners and from rare volumes of long-forgotten, ancient lore. Surely someone on this world practiced the ancient arts. Surely he could find out the place of magic in this world and learn how to use it again. At the very least, maybe he could still create potions and powders, although imbuing them with their magical efficacy was still at this point beyond his reach. But even a whiff of his former power might enable him to regain that part of his skills. Because he had always lived in a wash of magic power, he never had to worry about what it was, what the fabric of it consisted of, how to weave it from nothing.

  
And yet he and others had practiced magic in this world. The Destroyer had followed his mental commands. He had been able to disappear and create doubles of himself as before. Mjolnir continued to fly to Thor’s hand. Was that because he had always brought a piece of Asgard with his physical self wherever he went, and now his being partook of the essence of Midgard? What had Odin changed about him that had transmuted the gold of Loki the sorcerer into Midgardian lead? He studied this subject tirelessly, spending hours thinking through the implications of what he had read.

  
Loki also studied maps, both old and modern. The intricate growth of this mortal city fascinated him, the way it had been built up in layers, the amount of it that was actually underground. In Asgard, the prison was the major underground structure—as he well knew from his sojourn of more than a year in that dim and dreary place. But here there were underground rivers, tunnels full of trains and cars, underground stations full of shops, and passageways full of people walking from one place to another. They were always busy, these mortals. Always traveling back and forth, up and down. Always talking, talking, talking. He hated the constant motion and noise of this place. It seemed to exist in a continual state of chaos that had no need of Loki to create it. In this place, he withdrew from chaos, longing for his old life when he acted as the sole agent of disorder against an ancient and ordered world.

  
There was no time to think, to plan, to travel slowly and savor the going. In fact, he could no longer travel at all, confined as he was to this island. He had tried crossing the rivers that bounded it, but each time he approached the borders of his prison, he found himself physically incapable of crossing them. Similarly, when he attempted to board a conveyance to take him off the island his volition seemed to be stolen from him. Odin must have constructed a magical barrier that repulsed Loki’s physical being, but, if magic was impossible in this world, how could these invisible barriers exist? As a human, he should have been able to go anywhere in Midgard. It made no sense to him as yet that magic could exist in some places and not others, and that he could no more detect its presence than fly.

  
From maps he had learned about all these underground networks, and they gave him hope. If magic did not reach the level of the street, perhaps it was still present underground, in the bowels of Midgard, leaking in from another universe on the branches of Yggdrasil, or perhaps even from Asgard. If he entered into a universe where magic was the norm, would Loki become himself again?

 


	4. Loki's Journey

Thor lay on his back and looked up at the stars.

  
He and Jane loved to spend time here on the roof, lying side by side in the starlight and speaking to each other of science and magic, life and death, Asgard and Midgard, and the other realms, too, of things in the vast universe that Jane had never seen and probably never would, although she could imagine them.

  
Jane was finishing some work and had promised to come upstairs to sit by him within the hour. Thor looked forward eagerly to the moment when he would hear her feet upon the stairs. He loved lying beside her, holding her hand. He loved lying with her, giving and taking pleasure. When they spoke, and she told him of her life, of her dreams and her disappointments, her successes and failures, he knew she was telling him everything, holding nothing back.

  
He wished that he could say the same about himself.

  
Thor had never told her a deliberate lie, but there were things he had avoided, and continued to avoid, parts of his life that now began to loom larger and larger in his memory because he knew in his heart that, were she to find out about these things, she would be hurt that he had not told her. But, if he did tell her, then wouldn’t she also be hurt? Would knowing these things change the way she thought of him?

  
Loki. All the stories hidden in his heart had to do with Loki.

  
Thor stared between the stars and his mind was drawn back to a day spent riding on the plains, not long before Mjolnir came into his hands. Loki had ridden into the stable yard just before him, and as they handed over their mounts to be unsaddled, Loki had teased him unmercifully, and Thor had laughed, looking into his brother’s shining eyes.

  
They had eaten and drunk well, and told stories of their adventures—oh, how they had enjoyed themselves at table that night!—and, late in the evening, it still seemed too early to part and end the glorious day. So Thor trailed after Loki, all the way to his quarters, and they found themselves before the fire, lying companionably on a soft pile of furs.

  
Loki teased him again about his riding, calling his stallion fat and lazy, and Thor wrestled him down, laughing, and made him take it back. And when Thor had relaxed his hold, Loki rolled him off and clambered on top of him, crowing in triumph, saying, “Now I claim you, my prize!” and, leaning in, made as if to kiss him, laughing all the while.

  
And, as they looked at each other, their eyes grew serious, and when Loki’s mouth came down on his, Thor welcomed it. It was on that night that he discovered the sweetness of his brother’s lips and his caresses, the way his mouth grew slack and his acute eyes glassy when he took his pleasure.

  
Most nights after that, they ended in each other’s arms, and every day became a web of lies and longing. Innocence fled—steeped in pleasure, they took greater and greater risks, and finally they performed the deed from which there was no return. By performing this most loving act, Thor unmanned his brother, made him _argr_. He told himself that it didn’t matter, that Loki had already earned the shameful epithet through practicing the female art of _seidr_. This kind of talk made Loki’s eyes dark with fury, his tongue sharp with harsh, bitter words.

  
Incestuous brothers, as they thought themselves, they finally faced the future on the day when Odin told Thor that childhood was at an end—that he must soon marry Sif and prepare to ascend the throne. Their couplings grew violent and desperate. They argued, and yet they could not keep their hands off each other. The future loomed before them, and every night they promised that this was the final night, the last time.

  
When their secret meetings had first started, Loki played some cruel trick on Sif, and Thor knew it, although she would not tell him what it was. Now he worried because the two people he cared for most in the world hated each other so much that they could hardly speak a civil word.

  
One night, disaster came. Sif must have suspected something, for she entered Thor’s rooms without his leave and found them in bed, gasping out their pleasure. Thor never knew how long Sif had stood there, but when he thought later about what she must have seen, he did not wonder at the depth of her fury.

  
Loki, with Thor’s cock deep inside him, labored over Thor’s body, his head thrown back, eyes half closed, dark hair swinging free against his shoulders, with one hand stroking his own sex, the way Thor always found him the most beautiful. Thor’s hands gripped Loki’s waist, urging him on.

  
For Thor, one of the sweetest surprises of their intimacy was how uninhibited a lover Loki could be. He fascinated Thor with his lewd inventiveness. The cynical mask fell away, and Loki gave himself up completely to pleasure, often allowing Thor to see him come undone.

  
On the night Sif had discovered them, Loki was teasing Thor into a frenzy, playing at a game that he loved. He brought Thor close to release, and then leaned back and gripped the root of Thor’s manhood with his free hand, squeezing and pinching to disappoint him time and again, laughing wickedly. To Sif’s eyes they must have presented a horrifying picture of debauchery that she had not been prepared to see. She must have thought that Loki had cast a spell on Thor, ensnaring him, luring him from his place at her side into utter depravity. It must have made her desperate.

  
Loki had come first, crying out brokenly as if in spite of himself. It was the last time Thor had seen Loki’s face look so unguarded. At his release, Thor had probably roared, as Loki always told him he did, but he had no recollection of it now. All he could remember was how wrapped up had he been in the secret carnal world he shared with his brother.

  
When they had finished, and Loki had rolled off him to lie at his side, they heard a labored breath and then the unforgiveable insult, cried in Sif’s clear, outraged voice: “ _Argr!_ ”

  
Thor covered himself, but Loki stood and faced her, naked as he was, his mouth twisted in a sardonic smile.

  
“You call _me_ cock-lover, but here you are in Thor’s chambers,” he said cruelly. “I’m afraid you are too late. Thor is mine.”

  
“And would you tell Odin that you mean to marry your brother?” Sif spat, her eyes narrowing. “I will go to him now and tell him the glad news. Do you suppose he will prepare the wedding vows for his incestuous sons? And how happily will he greet you next, when he hears that you are _argr_?” she mocked.

  
Loki took a step towards her then, and Thor, wrapped in the sheet, climbed out of bed and stood between them. He knew he was in a delicate situation and he had to placate Sif to buy her silence.

  
“Sif, I am sorry,” he said. “You should not be here to see this. I am sorely ashamed.”

  
Loki looked at Thor as if he had never seen him before. It made Thor’s breath catch now to remember the expression on his face.

  
“You are ashamed?” Loki asked slowly, looking at him well. “Of what? Of me?”

  
The silence lasted much too long.

  
Thor finally spoke. “Loki, Sif and I must wed. You have always known that the pleasure you and I took with each other must be second to the needs of Asgard, and that it must remain secret.”

  
“Ah, of course, it’s Asgard that demands these things,” Loki said spitefully, “not your selfishness.” With a sweep of his hand, he used magic to dress himself and turned again to Sif.

  
“He is yours,” Loki said in a hollow voice. “May you have much pleasure of him. And if you choose to reveal what you know of me, then look to yourself.”

  
“Loki,” Thor began angrily, and then stopped when Loki disappeared. Loki made himself invisible, but he still took the trouble to slam the door. Thor remembered now, all this time later, how he was almost relieved to see his brother go, until the next day, when he missed him dearly, and every day after that.

  
Then he was left alone with his furious bride. “Sif, what are you doing here?”

  
Sif still trembled with anger and shock, but she held her head high, her hands planted firmly on her hips. “Thor, when we are married, you must put away childish things. You will be king. The _argr_ must be shamed and driven away from Asgard.”

  
“Do not shame him, Sif,” Thor said imperiously. “He is still my brother.” They looked hard at each other with furious eyes.

  
“Why not?” Sif asked with a slight, high tremor in her voice. “Are you in love with him? With your own brother?” Thor said nothing. Sif shook her head, disbelieving. “I know what you are thinking, Thor. You mean to have us both.”

  
Thor cringed now to remember what a brute he had been in those days, a brute and a fool. Sif was right. He had stood there, facing her, thinking that very thing.

  
“I will not allow it,” Sif said forcefully.

  
Her tone angered him, bully that he was, and it made him lash out. “You will do as I command.”

  
“Oh, no, I will not,” she said, her eyes flashing. “You are not my husband yet.”

  
And for a second time that night, Thor’s chamber door was slammed.

  
The next day, rumors flew around the court that Loki was _argr_. Sif was trying to dispose of her rival in the most effective way possible.

  
A man accused of _ergi_ , unmanliness, was required to retaliate lest the charge be thought true. Once Sif had shamed Loki, he had to fight back. Sif, who always thought in traditional terms, must have imagined that he would challenge her or Thor to a duel. But that is not what happened. Loki always did things his own way.

  
“Thor, are you awake?” Jane came up the stairs quietly, carrying two bottles of beer.

  
“Yes, Jane. I am here.” He needed to stop dwelling on the past. It was not fair to Jane. But how to put it out of his mind?

  
The events of that night had ended Thor’s interlude with Loki, and had ensured that he would never marry Sif. But the tragedy that unfolded just a few days later was the thing Thor felt the most ashamed of. He had trouble merely thinking about it, and he had never told anyone the story. But wouldn’t telling at least a part of what had happened explain to his new friends why Loki acted as he did? How Loki had been cast aside and betrayed, over and over, how he had been silenced and punished for who he was, and so had resorted to more and more unforgivable deeds? Loki deserved punishment for many of his actions, but he also deserved Thor’s understanding.

  
Thor had not been fair to Loki or to Jane. He had been glad of Loki’s banishment, had wished him dead or imprisoned, silenced. And all the time a voice in the back of his mind had nagged at him, giving him nightmares, telling him that he was blaming Loki for everything, even for things that were not his fault.

  
Jane was right. It was time to make peace with himself, and with Loki.

  
Jane slipped into the chair beside him and handed him a cold bottle. “What a beautiful night,” she sighed, smiling at him.

  
“Yes, it is,” Thor said, and her glance told him that she had heard the catch in his voice. “Jane, my beloved,” he said, “I have to tell you a story.”

 ***

  
Almost every day Loki frequented a bodega in Hell’s Kitchen on 10th Avenue in the 40s. The food was well made, but more than that, he sometimes liked to talk to the owner, Mr. Rubio, a middle-aged man who stood at the counter, day after day, serving people patiently and kindly. Loki was good at stealing items from such places without being detected, but he always paid at this bodega, although he wasn’t entirely sure why. The man never looked at him or anyone else with contempt. Loki knew the man had seen people steal from him, people who looked as if they needed the food, and had let it pass. In the last few months, Loki had exchanged more words with this man than with anyone else in Midgard, save the Avengers.

  
One morning Loki had picked out a sandwich and filled a cup with coffee. The items were sitting on the counter as he got his money out, and the proprietor was talking about another sign that the neighborhood was changing for the worse, how local families were getting pushed out by rich people moving in.

  
Loki hated money—the tedious process of counting out the correct amount, handing it over, and then receiving cumbersome coins in “change.” These people seemed so obsessed with the exact count of what was owed them. In order to fit in, he had to pretend to care, too. He noticed that a person dressed like himself who left money on a shop counter drew unwanted attention, so he always dutifully took the coins owed him, only to scatter them somewhere once he got outside.

  
“It’s a shame,” Mr. Rubio was saying. “Some of these families have been here for three, four generations. Some have lived here since their parents or grandparents emigrated from Italy. These companies come and they buy up whole blocks and throw the tenants out. It’s a terrible thing. What would you do in their place?”

  
Loki was not often asked ethical or personal questions, and he tended to have trouble relating to these mortal dilemmas, occupied as he was in trying to escape this place. Amused by Mr. Rubio’s direct question, he flashed a quick smile and simply said, “I would fight for my home.”

  
Mr. Rubio returned his smile. “You’re young, and you have lots of energy. Some of these people are in their eighties.”

  
Loki was distracted then by a feeling that all was suddenly not right.

  
A young man with bushy eyebrows and broad features, wearing a tattered jacket, walked in and pulled an item off the shelves seemingly at random. Loki could smell the chemicals on the newcomer, the sour, acrid scent of a drug addict. He had encountered drug addicts before and was wary of their desperate, violently impulsive behavior. He stepped back to let the man go ahead of him in case he had to defend himself.

  
The guy pulled a gun out of his pocket and pointed it shakily at Mr. Rubio, then made a half turn to point it at Loki, who put up his hands and cringed submissively.

  
These mortals, these fools, with their tiny, insignificant lives. Why were they so enamored of guns, which could shoot projectiles that tore through flesh and ended lives in an instant? A wave of fury slashed through him, but he didn’t let it show in his eyes. He wanted to take this young idiot down and leave him gasping on the floor.

  
“Empty the register,” the young man said. “Do it now!”

  
Mr. Rubio opened the drawer quickly and gathered the bills into one hand, proffering them to the youngster.

  
“Is this all?” he asked angrily. “Where’s the rest?”

  
“Do you think I’d risk my life for a few dollars, Joseph?” the old man said sadly. “There isn’t any more money. It’s morning, and business is not so great.” He showed his empty hands, palms up. “I’ve known you since you were a child. Your mother and grandmother shop here. If you have troubles, you can come to me, and I’ll help you. You don’t have to do this.”

  
Joseph shook his head and raised the gun, trying to hold it still despite the tremor of his hand. “You know who I am. Now I have to shoot you. You’ll call the cops.

  
“No, I won’t. Just take the money and go. Don’t be a murderer.”

  
Loki hardly listened to their words. He was waiting for the moment when the young man’s gun was pointing between them, when he would be off his guard. He shuffled his foot as a distraction, and Joseph swung the gun back to him. Loki cringed again, making himself look smaller, casting his eyes down.

  
But as the guy turned shakily back towards the proprietor, Loki stepped up quickly to his chest, so close that the hand with the gun was now behind him, pushing the guy’s arm straight up in the air and elbowing him in the throat in one move. The gun discharged into the ceiling. Loki wrestled him down and took the gun from his grasp, placing it on the counter. Joseph fell to the floor, choking and holding his throat.

  
Mr. Rubio was already on the phone to the police. “Thank you,” he whispered to Loki. “You saved my life. You saved his.”

  
“You are welcome,” Loki said, realizing it was true. Taking the gun from that young fool had afforded him much satisfaction, as had the proprietor’s words. He started to hand the man a ten-dollar bill, but Mr. Rubio waved him off.

  
“Please, take the food with my thanks. And if you want to leave before the police arrive, I’ll understand.”

  
Nodding in acknowledgment, Loki walked out with his breakfast. He ate swiftly and started walking straight up Amsterdam Avenue towards the north end of the island. This morning he would explore the area of Fort Tryon Park, and then he would be done with his surface exploration of this place. He thought no more of the young drug addict or the grateful old man, but only of the next stage of his quest to escape, when he would search underground for a trace of magic.

 ***

  
“Well, that was interesting,” Banner said, folding his arms and leaning back in his chair.

  
Stark grunted in agreement. “Jarvis, rewind and show the whole thing again. Slo-mo this time.”

  
They watched silently as a nervous young man pulled a gun in a bodega and Loki disarmed him with one, seemingly effortless, move.

  
“Nice,” said Banner. “Enough force to disable him, but not to kill. Do you think Loki is learning how to be human?”

  
“Oh, I’m sure he’s learning...something,” Stark said, scratching his head. “I can’t tell. That’s why I get really nervous when he’s off-camera for a few hours at a time. We can watch him, but we don’t know what’s going on in his head.”

  
“Yeah,” Banner said thoughtfully, “was he helping out that shopkeeper or did he just get angry because a gun was shoved in his own face? What do you think he’s up to?”

  
Stark switched to a live feed of Loki walking through a teeming underground passageway. “He’s still exploring, but I don’t know what his endgame is. The other day, he walked to the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge and stood halfway across, just stood there. Maybe there’s some reason he can’t get to the other side.”

  
“Magic?” Banner suggested. “Maybe there’s a barrier, and he’s trying to see if he can cross it somehow. Thor did say he was confined to Manhattan.”

  
Stark shrugged. “Could be. He’s spending more time underground—Port Authority, Penn Station, subway tunnels. Maybe he thinks he can get through that way.”

  
Banner rose. “Fascinating as this is, I need to do some work. Are you coming?”

  
Stark’s eyes never left the screen. “I think I’ll sit here a while.”

  
“Jarvis can watch him and let you know if he makes a move.”

  
“Go ahead,” Stark said moodily. “I’ll catch up.”

  
“Tony,” Banner said warningly, “watch yourself. What you’re doing—it’s called—”

  
“What?” Stark snapped defensively, glaring up at him.

  
“It’s called ‘obsession,’” Banner said mildly, removing his glasses and looking for an invisible smudge. “Just so you know.”

  
Stark settled down again, his eyes back on the screen. “Yeah, whatever,” he muttered. “Don’t you get it? It’s all on me. I let him go. If he does something now, if anyone gets hurt....”

  
“It’s not your fault,” Banner said quickly.

  
Stark looked at him for a moment and shook his head. “Get out of here, Mr. Greenjeans,” he said, not unkindly. “I’ll see you in the lab.”

 ***

  
Loki walked through a long, dark tunnel with black, greasy walls. It smelled of smoke, and oiled metal, and urine, and stale air that had been breathed in and out by too many bodies. Many voices echoed in the gloom, and a metallic shriek announced the arrival of a train in the station below, one flight down. Excitement spread, and the crowd surged forward, jostling him. He had learned not to react. In Asgard, courtesy decreed leaving adequate space between people. Here it was not possible to do so. In this crowded place only the hardest, most deliberate, blows were considered insults.

  
He had walked these tunnels for the last ten days, taking trains between stations, and walking again, trying to cover the complex, subterranean maze of passageways in his search for some trace of another world.

  
Something wafted by him like a breath of soothing ice in a stifling hot world.

  
He slowed his pace, trying to concentrate through this kaleidoscope of colors, scents, and sounds battering his senses. There it was again, a thin wisp of something alien to this world, familiar to him. It called to him, tugging at his mind, his heart, his will. It dissipated.

  
Loki stopped in his tracks and closed his eyes as the crowd roared around him. People were streaming up and down the stairs as the newly arrived train disgorged its living cargo and took on another load. Standing between the two currents, he was buffeted one way and another, trying to think, to feel, to hold his ground. He felt dull, his senses thick, as if his mind and body were swaddled in layers of fabric, making them sluggish and slow to respond.

  
It faded. And then, gradually, as the disturbed air settled after the train’s departure, it returned, a strong thread, a current, a trace he could follow. He opened his eyes and searched out the source of the wind that was carrying the sign he had sought for so long. It had traveled down the tunnel towards him from some distant point along the rails. It was impossible to enter the train tunnel without being seen by police or others who would stop him. He had waited so long, but he would have to wait a bit longer. He would have to be careful not to be followed.

 ***

  
In the days since Thor had told Jane his story, she seemed more detached and thoughtful, and he wondered if he had driven her away from him forever. Perhaps he should not have told her that he and Loki had been lovers while they still thought themselves brothers. Or perhaps it was knowing what a selfish brute he had been in those times, how he had mistreated Sif and Loki, that had made her think twice about their love. Or—and he thought this most likely—it was the cruel and gruesome story of Loki and Brokk that had shocked her into silence—the aftermath of the night when Sif had discovered Thor and Loki’s secret, when she had pronounced the unforgivable insult, and Loki had found his own way of getting back at her.

  
He couldn’t know for certain what Jane thought because she hadn’t told him anything. When he had asked, she said that she needed time and would talk to him when she was ready. But sometimes he surprised her looking at him with those deep brown eyes of hers, and the look he saw in them might have been judgment, or it might have been fear.

  
Still, they went through their normal routine. Jane worked all day, sometimes into the evening, while Thor read, or explored the desert, or performed day jobs for pay. They cooked and ate together, then spent some time on the roof, stargazing, and they slept together. That was the only thing that gave him hope. What was missing between them right now were words. And, without words between himself and Jane, Thor was thrown back on his own thoughts, which, right now, he would rather have avoided.

  
To fill his time since his arrival on Midgard, Thor had taken on some simple jobs that required strength but little thought. He wanted to contribute to the meager household income, but he also wanted to know more of what it meant to be human so that he could better understand Jane, and so that he could know something of what Loki was feeling. He was discovering that Midgard was a brutal world where strong men were used as beasts of burden to perform menial tasks that could have been accomplished by magic on Asgard. It made him uneasy to know that his brother was alone in this world, friendless, forced to exist without the magic that had come so easily to him. He began to dare to question Odin’s wisdom in sending Loki to exile here. Exile on Midgard had made Thor himself a better man, but would it do anything for Loki, or just drive him further into himself? More and more it seemed like a death sentence, a way to dispose of an inconvenient and disobedient son without the onus of executing him.

  
One night, when Thor was starting to wonder if they would ever speak again, Jane came up on the roof and handed him a beer as usual, saying, “Thor, do you mind if we talk? I’ve thought about what you said. About Loki, and about you.”

  
Apprehension about her judgment and pleasure at hearing the sound of her voice warred in his mind. “Of course,” he said, trying to sound calm. “I am ready to listen.”

  
“Okay, first of all,” she said in her clear, resolute way, “I think that it was a tragedy. I don’t think that you’ve given yourself time to mourn.”

  
Thor wasn’t sure he understood. “To mourn...?” he asked uncertainly.

  
Jane turned in her chair to look at him, curling her legs under her body. “Let me know if I understand it right. You fell in love with a man you thought was your brother. It turned out he wasn’t, but you thought he was. And of course that was a problem, so you had to keep it secret. But, more than that, just the fact that you were having sex with him was a huge shame for him, but not for you.” She paused and shook her head as if to clear it. “I still don’t understand that, by the way, how it could shame him and not you, not that I think it was shameful at all, except for the thinking-it-was-incest part. You were doing the same thing.”

  
Thor felt himself blushing in the darkness. “Not exactly the same thing. I was...Loki was....” He trailed off awkwardly.

  
“I get it. You don’t have to explain. I assume he was in the female position, and you never were. Women must really be looked down on in Asgard. Do they have any rights at all? And same-sex couples—well, there must be some, but what do they do? Do they hide like you did, or just leave Asgard?” Thor opened his mouth to answer, but Jane continued. “We can talk about that later. And, believe me, I want to. What I mean about mourning is that it all ended so fast, and there was so much guilt and shame. You never had a chance to mourn losing the person you loved.”

  
“You mean Loki,” Thor said simply. Jane was right. He had never thought of it that way before. Thor and Loki and Sif. They had all done stupid, unforgivable things, and Thor had lost them both—Sif, his dear friend and almost his wife; Loki, his brother, his lover.

  
“It’s a horrible story,” Jane went on. “After the Battle of New York I kept thinking of him as a monster and wondering how you could ever have cared about him, but I see it now, I really do. He’s damaged. He can’t help but be damaged. You saw it. You played a part in it. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think you have to tell the story.”

  
“You think I should tell my friends about Loki and me?” Thor asked uncomfortably.

  
“Not that you were lovers. Just about what happened to Loki after. Tell them what made him the way he is. Maybe it will make a difference.”

  
A silence fell between them, but it wasn’t as uncomfortable as before. Thor was thinking about what it might be like to tell his friends about Loki to make them understand what had shaped him. It would not make them trust him, nor should it, but perhaps they would understand.

  
“I think you are right, my love,” he said finally, “although I don’t think it will change anything for them. They might understand Loki’s history, but it will not change the terrible things he has done on this world.”

  
“No, it can’t do that,” she said. “But knowing the causes of things makes you able to make better decisions. Loki is human. Perhaps showing him a little more compassion would make him learn what your father sent him here to learn.”

  
“And what do you think that was?” asked Thor, smiling, thinking back on what he himself had learned here during his own exile.

  
“What it means to be human,” she said. “What it means to face down death every day. To be bored, to be hungry, to feel pain. To feel joy, to take pleasure in beauty and friendship because life is so short—not in spite of it. To be on the same footing with everyone else. We’re all human. We’re all in this together.”

  
Thor sat up to take her in his arms, almost wishing he were human again so that he could really be a part of this world that he loved. And then he had a chilling suspicion that he could not share with Jane. _My father did not send Loki here to teach him to be human. He sent him here to die._ But what if Loki learned, what if he changed? Would Odin relent?

  
“I will go to New York soon,” he said softly in her ear, “and I will tell them Loki’s story.”

 ***

  
Loki had wandered for days, following the scent of magic. It wasn’t exactly a scent—it was more like the tendril of a thought, a trace of a familiar feeling that was maddeningly subtle and vague. When, deep in an abandoned passageway, he finally found the first crack in Midgardian space, he stood in the center of the emanation, and though he knew it must be strong he could hardly detect it. Instead of feeling bathed in magic, saturated in it to the core of his being, as he always had been, he felt dense, insensitive, like a solid rock in the center of a bubbling stream. With magic rushing like water on both sides of him, he hardly even felt that it had coated his surface.

  
He was in an old tunnel, intended for a train, that had been closed up with concrete for many years, and yet there were signs of habitation: garbage, painted insignia and obscure messages on the walls, and a few caches of drug-taking supplies that someone had hidden for safekeeping.

  
Loki was cautious, first entering through a broken wall from the city sewer system, later discovering a manhole cover in an alley with a ladder beneath it that was still intact. He climbed down the first time in pitch darkness, only able to turn on his flashlight when his boots touched uneven ground at the bottom. There was a passageway full of rubble after that, which led to stairs descending to a concrete platform where no train had ever stopped. Down a curved tunnel he found the first crack. Further along, he found others. Only one was passable, but it looked untouched, and that did not surprise him.

  
For he recognized the magic that poured from the rent in the ground, and, from there, into these echoing, abandoned halls. It was magic that had no source on this world, but came from far off on the branches of Yggdrasil. It was the magic of Hel, Queen of the Dead.

  
Surely even the dull Midgardians could recognize the warning implicit in this magic. While it was natural for every living thing to die, it was unnatural for the living to pass into Niflheim while still alive, though some few—Odin and Loki among them—had done so and lived to tell the tale.

  
It was clear now what Loki had to do. He must go and visit Hel.

  
He was alone, alone and forgotten on this world. In weeks of searching, he had found no other way that connected to another world. That New York possessed a direct connection only to Niflheim, among all the Nine Realms, he found amusing, ironic, and deeply frustrating, all at once.

  
Were the Avengers watching him, or had they ceased to care where he was or what he was doing, now that they apparently considered him harmless? He would never be harmless. He would go to Hel and, if Hel was friendly to his cause, he would find a passageway through Niflheim to another realm where he could regain what was his. Or he would raise an army of the undead and come back to this place to show them all what it meant to underestimate Loki.

  
Loki prepared carefully for his journey, gathering what he needed without alerting the Avengers, who, he had decided, could be observing him through many of the cameras he saw everywhere. Stark’s mechanical servant might be reporting on his movements in almost every part of the city. He would conceal his preparations until he was ready to leave. And if everything went according to plan, he would not be back.

  
One thing he had needed since his arrival was a dagger. It was his weapon of choice and always had been, and he felt its lack sorely. All the shops that sold knives possessed armored doors and security cameras, and the men who obviously carried such weapons looked as if they would defend them fiercely. His only chance was to steal one unnoticed from someone’s belt or pocket, and that would be risky.

  
Then one day he saw a fight in the park. Two very young men were circling each other, knives drawn. A crowd of by-standers gaped from a distance, but no one moved to intervene. Both knives were good, but the smaller man’s weapon looked to be of excellent make. Judging the inexperience of the contenders by their youth and awkwardness, Loki jumped in, taking one youth down from behind before he knew what hit him and kicking the other first in the kneecap and then the weapon hand.

  
Everything happened so fast that no one had time to react. Loki secretly pocketed both knives and went on his way. It was always good to have an extra weapon. The few people cheering for him as he left made him think of the Avengers. He wondered if they enjoyed the adulation. People seemed eager to applaud someone who did what they themselves knew they should do, but without looking too deeply into motives.

  
When he was ready, he concealed everything carefully in his coat and went to the alley where the tunnel entrance was. There was one camera at the corner, high on a light pole, and as he passed underneath, he smiled up at it, thinking of Stark and hoping never to see him again, except perhaps in battle.

 ***

  
Stark sat sprawled before a bank of screens, the knuckles of one fist resting pensively at his lips, contemplating the images of New York on the screens before him. Some showed street scenes with people coming and going, while others focused on sections of underground tunnel or subway platforms.

  
“Sir, you seem concerned. May I be of assistance?” Jarvis offered solicitously.

  
“Where the hell is Loki?” Stark asked rhetorically. “It’s been five days. We’ve never lost track of him for more than 24 hours before.”

  
“As I have told you, sir, the last time I saw him he was on Houston Street near Second Avenue, just about to go around the corner where there were no available cameras for at least half a block.”

  
“And he smiled at you. At the camera. Has he ever done that before?” Stark asked. “Show me the film again.”

  
“Yes, sir.”

  
Stark watched closely as Loki walked to the end of the street, looked straight into the camera, for which he had to crane his neck back almost ninety degrees, and smiled his wolfish smile before disappearing around the corner.

  
“What’s nearby? Go over it again.”

  
“In the same block, there is a coffee shop, an art gallery, a mini-market, and two apartment lobbies, both with attendants. Across the street, there is a florist, a small hotel, and a series of apartment buildings. But the hotel has cameras. Had he passed in front of it, I would have seen him.” Jarvis’s tone seemed long-suffering, and Stark wondered in passing if the AI was becoming slightly too human.

  
“What else is there? I mean, what’s upstairs in those buildings?”

  
“Nothing out of the ordinary, sir. It is possible that Loki entered one of them; however, I think it more likely that he went underground.”

  
Stark seized upon the idea. “Into a basement? Or where? What’s underground at that spot?”

  
“An interesting question, sir. I am researching that now. In 1929, it was proposed to construct a subway line on the East Side. Several months were spent digging tunnels, but, after the start of the Great Depression, construction was halted and the already-constructed tunnels were closed up.”

  
Stark thought a moment. “That’s the Second Avenue line. They’re building it now further up the street.”

  
“Yes, sir, but the former tunnels remain abandoned, and it is quite possible that they are approximately at the spot where Loki disappeared. No one seems to be quite sure where the original holes were dug.”

  
Stark rose precipitously, quivering with nervous energy. “Search everything on the internet from official New York City sites to urban exploration sites. Call the Mayor’s office for help if you need it, but don’t tell them why. Find out where that tunnel is and how to access it.” Stark thought momentarily about donning his suit and going to the place to poke around, but he decided it was a bad idea to draw attention to the area. He paced nervously, running a hand through his hair.

  
“Shall I call Thor, sir?” Jarvis. “Perhaps he could help with the search.”

  
Stark considered. “Not yet. He said he was through and didn’t want to hear anything unless Loki was dead. I think I’m going to respect that for a few more days.”

 ***

  
Loki made his way cautiously along the uneven surface of the tunnel. He was close to the rift now, he could feel it, but he was completely dependent on the flashlight he carried for light. If he had still possessed his magic, he would have been able to see by the energy flowing up from Niflheim , a particle stream of great power that he could barely sense. He had become a dull creature like the humans around him. Would he be capable of convincing Hel to let him pass through her realm?

  
Talking to Hel was a dangerous thing even in the best of circumstances. If he had possessed his powers, if his body had enjoyed its old strength and endurance, if his reflexes had been as sharp as before—even then, Hel would have been a formidable enemy. Now, facing her seemed like a monumental risk.

  
Hel was a consummate liar and bargainer. She smelled weakness and took advantage of it. She was capricious, unemotional and deadly—all the things that Loki himself was reputed to be—but with immense power. And Loki wished to ask her an enormous service—to let him travel safely, invisibly, through her realm. He had nothing to offer except his life, and that would defeat the purpose of asking. His only hope was to promise something from the future, something he might do if he were able to escape this sentence, and who knew when or if that might be? But everything depended on this—if he could travel through Hel’s realm and come out somewhere else on Midgard, or better yet, somewhere else on Yggdrasil, he could find another passageway to a friendlier place than this Manhattan. Somewhere he might be able to get his _seidr_ back.

  
Carefully, he made a cache of items he might require if Hel rejected his bargain and he needed to regain the surface quickly with enemies at his heels. All traces of human habitation had ended earlier in the tunnel. He doubted anyone ever came this far, but, just in case, he concealed his cache under a pile of rubble that had accumulated from the slow disintegration of the walls in the century they had sat there, buried and forgotten. The lesser of the two daggers went into the pile in case he lost the other on the way out.

  
It was unlike him to plan so carefully, to take such precautions in case of failure. The sudden prudence that urged him to take these actions made him doubt his success, and initial doubt could be fatal to any sort of a plan. In the past, whether he succeeded or failed, he had always leaped into things believing in unqualified success. This circumspection—was this what it meant to be human? Was this the humanity that Thor and the others touted, to feel so ineffectual that defeat was much more likely than success?

  
He slipped into the largest rift, which quickly closed around him until he was sliding down a rubble-strewn tunnel barely large enough to accommodate his lean body. The slope was so precipitous that he had to brake with his heels and hands, wondering how difficult it would be to climb back up this slope in the pitch dark, floundering on the slippery rubble.

  
Finally the tunnel disgorged him onto a sandbar on a wide, flat riverbank in a dim cave chamber so immense that its ceiling was lost in the gloom. The meandering river that flowed through this place gave off a vague luminescence, and Loki recognized it as the River Gjöll, the river of Niflheim that all the dead must cross. And none, save the living, could pass back across this barrier without Hel’s leave.

  
Far down the river, almost at the edge of sight, something glimmered in the dusky air, and Loki though it must be Gjallarbrú, the gold-thatched bridge that crossed the River Gjöll, guarded by the giantess Módgud. He knew he must not cross that bridge with the dead souls, or Módgud would challenge him, and she was a more formidable enemy than he could defeat in his present state. As a living man, he stood out here as a material being, sluggish and dense compared to the flitting souls, and therefore vulnerable. But, unlike the souls under Hel’s tyrannical rule, he still possessed his will and his wits.

  
He passed across the river, walking on its sandy bottom, the water rippling around him up to his neck. But, because he was not of this darkling place, it did not wet his clothing or his skin. He emerged onto a downhill path, paved with large, flat stones, and the coincidence did not surprise him, for the geography of this place was malleable, suiting the caprices of Hel’s cruel fancy. She already knew that he was here, and shifted the stones under his feet to lead him to her throne.

  
And soon Hel was there before him, seated on her golden throne, dressed in a beautiful gown that dripped with pearls and satin and lace, her face above it a hideous mass of putrefaction. Garm, her hound, the ugly brute, growled at her side, its bloodstained muzzle dripping with fresh gore.

  
“Loki Odinson,” Hel sang appraisingly in her melodious, lilting voice, “and yet no longer Odinson, no longer Loki. Learned in lore, yet no more a mage. The All-Father weaves powerful enchantments to bind you, yet once secure in my kingdom would you have your power back. Is that why you have come? Shall I take you now and restore to you what is yours?”

  
Loki smiled. He and Hel had bantered words before, each adept at lying, each dangerous and clever enough to give the other pause. Even in other times, Loki could not match her in power, but he had known spells that she did not, quick, gossamer charms and hexes that might—if aptly applied—distract and scatter her strong and ponderous power. But now the balance was against him, and both knew it. She sang, and spoke in riddles and paradox, but he hoped he could still surprise her in a duel of wits.

  
“Mother of all the Dead, Mighty Hel,” he began respectfully, “my time is not yet come. I seek, not to die, but to ask a boon.”

  
She might have smiled with her crooked, half-rotted mouth. “I will hear thee, Loki Laufeyson, thou child of two fathers and none. Speak your desire, Loki Scar-Lip.”

  
His blood ran cold at the epithet, and his anger started to flare, but he pushed it aside. She was trying to distract him, to make him lose his wits when he needed them most.

  
“I seek safe passage through your lands, Great Hel.” The sound she made startled him, and, when he finally realized it was laughter, chilled his human blood.

  
“Even were I to grant such a thing,” she sang happily, “you would not survive the journey. Mortals do not dare to face me while their flesh still loves their bones. Insolent one, you dare when you should tremble, quail when you should dare. Now more than ever should you fear me, but even more fear yourself.” She laughed gloatingly. Loki realized with a shock of horror that Hel knew something about his situation that he didn’t know, and she knew that he didn’t know it. He had badly miscalculated. She was preparing to use her knowledge against him, and she would not grant him what he asked for.

  
“Oh, Mighty Hel,” he said again, knowing that flattery probably wouldn’t help him at a time like this, but fearing to dispense with it, “would you destroy me for asking a simple kindness? If I presume too much, surely, in your great wisdom, you will allow me to return to Midgard to live out my cockroach life. You will have me soon enough, in the blink of an eye, at the end of my mortal days.”

  
She leaned in to look at him, and he saw that her neck was growing longer over the top of her gown, stretching so that her face could come close to his. He held his ground, defiant, though sickened by the stench and the look of her.

  
“Yes, I will have you, Loki Lie-Smith. Perhaps I have you already. Perhaps you have died where you stand and are already part of my legions.”

  
Loki dared to chuckle softly, right in her face. “If I were in your grasp, you would not waste your time in taunting me.”

  
She snarled, and the dog at her feet echoed the sound. Her head began to draw back, but suddenly darted forward again and bit his shoulder, hard. He reached for his dagger, thinking to slash at her neck and run. But if she was taking hold of him to pull him down into her realm, nothing could save him now. The strong teeth loosened and let go, and Hel was speaking right into his face.

  
“You anger me, Lie-Smith, with your presumption. But your ignorance amuses me. All unknowing as in a dream you walk on Midgard. You know not what garments you wear.” She reached out a boney figure and touched something in the air. “Odin’s magic is strong, mage without magic, and of a tight weave.

  
“Most humans do not dare to come here, occupied as they are with their puny lives. But if you need more to amuse you, Weaver of Tales, then my hellspawn will follow you home. If you survive, then in future you will respect my power and forebear to enter my realm and importune me. If you do not live,” she laughed briefly, a sharp sound like a bark, and Garm echoed her, snapping his drooling jaws, “then you shall have your boon—to wander my lands. But you shall never leave.”

  
Garm sprang, but Loki had expected it, and kicked him square in the jaw, sending him sprawling backwards. He was tempted to gut the animal where it lay, but Hel could have reanimated it with a snap of her fingers. Instead, he backed quickly down the stone path and ran up the slope to the river with the hound at his heels.

  
Once Loki plunged into the water, Garm could no longer follow, but stood, howling on the bank, mourning its lost prey. Fresh meat must be hard to come by in Hel’s lair, Loki thought grimly.

  
Laboriously, he dragged himself upward through the burrow that he had easily slipped down before. It was dusty and close, and there seemed to be no air. His lungs ached with effort.

  
And then he was through, back into Midgard. The air in the tunnel smelled dank and dangerous with must and putrefaction. He heard the sound of dripping water, and rustling somewhere close.

  
Fire. He must have fire.

  
In other days he could have snapped his fingers and held it on his palm, but now he was reduced to these small machines, these lighters and matches that he had filled his pockets with before coming down here. And he had hidden a torch and more lighters with the extra dagger near the entrance to this passageway. These had been preparation for the worst case, if Hel rejected him and her minions were at his heels.

  
And he couldn’t really claim that his visit had been a success. He needed fire now.

  
He found his footing and brought a lighter out. He lit it and dropped it almost immediately. The _draug_ was just before him, smiling its foul, undead smile. It had been a goat once, or a deer, and had no lower jaw. Backing away awkwardly, he fished another lighter from his pocket and lit it up. A pair of pointed hooves swung at his head, hitting the shoulder Hel had bitten. He cried out, ducking low and lighting the edge of its sagging flesh with his flame, then staggering back as it writhed and screamed, falling into a pile of ash. With his foot he mixed the ashes into the filth and water that oozed along the floor. If left undisturbed, its ashes could bring it forth again.

  
He had forgotten to scatter a _draug_ ’s ashes once, to his horror, when he was young, after his first encounter with Hel’s favorite weapon, the revenant that struck terror into the living with its misshapen body, rotted flesh and misaligned bones. She raised them by the dozen when she needed an army, animals and humans alike, animated by magicks so primitive that they resisted more refined weapons. Spells could not defeat them. Even blowing them apart into a thousand pieces only made them more frightening when they pulled their many parts together and came back to attack again. The only way to defeat them was to burn them up and scatter the ashes, mixing them with water or air.

  
“Go back to Hel with my defiance, creature,” he muttered, looking around with his back to the wall. These things usually came in threes.

  
The _draug_ had scattered his cache, and the extra dagger was gone. The electric flashlight was useless now, broken apart under the _draug_ ’s hooves and coated in its putrefied slime. With the aid of his lighter, he found the torch he had left—a thick branch torn from a tree in the park, wrapped at one end with kerosene-soaked rags tied with wire. He lit it and the tunnel was visible for five or six feet in either direction. The torch smoked badly and its stench choked him in the enclosed space. Moving as swiftly as he dared along the uneven ground, littered with rubbish and dislodged railroad ties, he made his way towards the abandoned station. He had no wish to confront the next _draug_ here.

  
He crept down the fetid tunnel awkwardly sideways, his back against the wall and the torch held out in front of him. He heard voices. _Damn_. There were people down here, young ones, by the sound of it. He reached the platform and climbed up the steps. There were two boys with bandanas on their faces who were occupied in painting the wall—big letters in complex designs like intertwined runes. A bright lantern sat at their feet, but the place was so cavernous its light illuminated little besides the wall they were painting.

  
“Run,” he said to them, and his voice came out as a croak. “There’s something following me.”

  
One of them shrugged and went back to his painting. The other laughed. “What’s the matter, old man, you need a drink?” he taunted. “I think you had enough.”

  
The second _draug_ was on him then. It towered over him, twice as large as the first one, with sharp teeth and flapping ears and huge hands with sharp talons, an amalgam of several animals, real and mystical. It stomped towards him on elephant feet, making a growling, whining, whistling sound like a punctured bag of wind that smelled like death itself. Because Loki had turned to warn the children, it managed to knock the torch out of his hand as its talons raked down his arm, shredding his sleeve and the skin under it. The boys stared, aghast.

  
“Run!” he yelled again, kicking at it, recovering the torch and shoving it in the thing’s face. It dropped down off the platform, but he knew he hadn’t even come close to defeating it.

  
The boys ran up the stairs, dropping cans of paint as they went. The paint smelled flammable. He grabbed a couple of cans on the fly and stuffed them into his coat pockets. He had an idea.

  
He ran up the stairs as fast as he could, but he heard the thing behind him and turned, spraying wildly at it with a can. Red paint coated its short, ugly muzzle, making its mismatched, half-rotten eyes squint in anger. That bought him enough time to squeeze through the half-blocked passageway and, lungs heaving with effort, climb the ladder to the outside.

  
He burst out into the sunlight and fell to his knees in the alley, scattering pedestrians. The torch smoked in his hand. He looked up then, and saw a dozen people gaping at him.

  
“Hey, you’re bleeding,” a man said, pointing at his arm. “Are you okay?”

  
“Where did you come from?” a woman asked.

  
Why did mortals always stand around asking inane questions when the air fairly thrummed with danger?

  
“Run!” he yelled hoarsely. “There’s a monster coming.” As quickly as he could, he dragged the manhole cover back over its hole.

  
But they didn’t leave, they laughed as if he was insane, and maybe he was, but a second later the _draug_ exploded through the manhole so hard the cover rang against a nearby building like a cathedral bell. Stamping and whistling fearfully, the beast followed him out into the street, where a crowd of people stood agape and watched Loki fight for his life.

  
It swung its claws at him and he ducked, striking it low with the torch and knocking its feet out from under it. And still the people stood and watched, keeping what they thought was a safe distance. He had noticed this before about mortals—they seemed to think they were safe until a monster actually reached down their throats and yanked their guts out.

  
“Run!” he yelled again. “Get away from here!” If he went down, the thing would go after whoever was left. When he smashed it on its ugly head with the torch, he even heard a few cheers. Did these people think he was an Avenger?

  
The creature’s foul breath was in his face as its talons raked across his chest, hard and deep, just missing his throat. He sprayed at it again and tried to light the paint on its body. The torch’s flame got into the spray, and suddenly he held a fireball that lit up the creature’s head. It screamed and writhed as it was consumed in a ball of fire. He scraped at the ashes with his boot, mixing them into a puddle and spraying paint into them, mixing the whole mess up beyond reconstruction.

  
All around him, people applauded and cheered. He turned and stared at them, wondering for a crazy second if he should take a bow. But he was bleeding badly, and another creature was on its way to find him. He had to reach a protected place from which to fight it, now.

  
Loki heard a familiar whoosh, and suddenly he was snatched up high into the air, headed for Stark Tower.

  
“No!” he screamed. “There’s one more. I have to kill it.”

  
“Where have you been for a week?” Stark asked grimly. “No one could find you.”

  
An hour of bantering with Hel had taken a week in this world, and now would possibly cost him his life.

  
They landed on the tower, and Stark dragged him unceremoniously into the penthouse room and dropped him on the floor. Before he knew it, Hawkeye had slapped cuffs on his wrists and was standing there looking at him contemptuously. The metal man immediately turned and flew back out into the city.

  
“Unchain me,” Loki said quickly. “If you never believe another thing I say, take these chains off and get behind me!”

  
“What kind of a fool do you think I am?” Hawkeye scoffed.

  
“Look, there’s something after me. It—”

  
“Is that blood?” Hawkeye asked, pointing to his chest. “What the hell were you doing?”

  
“Of course it’s blood,” Loki snapped. “I was fighting a _draug_. Another one is coming. Can’t you feel it in the air?” A deep vibration juddered through his chest. It was magic, he was feeling magic as he had in Hel, dampened out and filtered though it was. The creature was bringing a piece of Hel’s realm with it, and Loki could feel it coming towards him. This was no simple glamour, nor was he completely human. What had Odin done to him?

  
The Hawk shrugged infuriatingly. “I don’t feel a thing, but I’m getting a little sick of this game, okay?” He reached for Loki, who evaded his grasp and stumbled out the door, standing on the parapet where he had once fancied himself Midgard’s king.

  
“Stay behind me,” he said, panting. “It will find me soon. It will take anything near me, anything in its way.”

  
When Stark had nabbed him, he lost the torch and the paint can. He had another can in his pocket, and a few lighters, but with these cuffs on, he couldn’t reach them. Hawkeye followed him out onto the parapet.

  
“Fine. I’ll humor you, if you tell me where you were for the last week. What are ‘draugs’?”

  
“I was in Hel’s realm,” Loki explained patiently. “But I was only there for an hour. Time passes differently there. _Draugar_ are Hel’s minions. They are carrion creatures animated by a spell.”

  
Hawkeye scoffed again. “Did you just say ‘minions’?”

  
“Enough!” cried Loki. “Hel, Queen of the Underworld, has sent an undead creature out into New York. Where are your friends, the Avengers? They could help me to kill this thing. If it kills me, which it is sure to now, then you must tell them—”

  
Hawkeye grabbed Loki under the arms and hauled him back into the room, dropping him on his knees. He shut the glass door and locked it.

  
“Stop bullshitting me,” Hawkeye said, eyes glinting with anger. “You’re just trying to find out where the others are, to see if you’re alone with me, right? Well, here you go: the others are fighting a drone bot attack over in Morningside Heights, and now they’re one down because I have to stay and babysit you. So if you make me mad enough I’ll just shoot you and go help them, got it?”

  
Loki looked at his hands, which were covered with his own blood. “In a moment you are going to be very sorry. And if you kill me you’ll be sorrier still.” He hung his head and laughed at the absurdity of it. “You must believe me,” he continued reasonably. “If you don’t give me the keys to these cuffs now, it will kill me, and you’ll be next.”

  
On the parapet, on the other side of the glass, a looming shape landed hard, shaking the building. Of course it was even bigger than the other _draugar_ , a massive thing of yellowed bones and bony armored plates with a humanoid skull bearing a pair of twisted horns. Carrion flesh hung from it here and there, and one eyeball dangled crazily from a socket. It bore a metal shield of alien design and a huge broadsword. The thing burst through the glass and stopped as if sizing up its opponents. Loki struggled awkwardly to his feet.

  
“Holy shit!” Hawkeye cried. He ran to the bar and opened drawer after drawer, fumbling for the keys.

  
“Too late,” Loki said sardonically, doing his best to appear calm. His human heart was pounding crazily in his chest, his mind racing. “I _did_ warn you.”

  
The _draug_ shot through the air and suddenly was just before him, swinging the sword at his head. He ducked and rolled on his shoulders, coming up behind a metal chair that he grabbed with both hands and swung high to meet the next blow. Even through the buffer, the thing beat him to his knees and sliced through the chair’s rung as if it were butter. With all his strength, Loki swung what was left at the creature’s head. The neck bent backwards with a crack of bone and then snapped up again. The _draug_ could fight like this forever, while Loki’s stamina was starting to fade. Loki’s coat pockets were full of fire, but he couldn’t reach them. He had to get his hands free, and the broken chair had given him an idea.

  
Crouching, he held his bound hands in the air with the broken chair beneath them to serve as a buffer. If he could get the thing to strike a blow straight down, maybe it would sever the chain between the cuffs. And maybe it would slice right through the chair and go on to sever his arm, or break his skull. Or maybe the creature would see through the ploy, although he doubted it was that intelligent. He was betting his life on it.

  
It took the bait, raising its sword high in the air with both hands on the hilt. Loki heard a whoosh, and one of Barton’s arrows bounced off the creature’s bony frame, creasing Loki’s forehead. With a forearm he wiped blood out of his eyes. The creature hesitated, flicking its hollow gaze to where Barton stood, setting up another arrow.

  
“Stop trying to help before you kill me,” Loki yelled. “It’s made of bone, you fool. An ordinary arrow can’t harm it.” The creature roared and prepared to strike him a horizontal blow. From his crouch, Loki leapt back and countered with the chair, which broke apart under the onslaught. No chance now of getting his cuffs off that way. Maybe he could use Barton’s skill, though, if he could think of the right way to do it.

  
“In the battle we fought here, a year ago, one of your arrows blew up in my face,” he said, dodging another blow. “Do you have one of those?”

  
“Yeah.” Hawkeye pulled one out and strung it on the bow.

  
“Wait! Do exactly as I say.” Loki grabbed another chair, a heavy one with rollers, and swung it at the creature’s legs. It barely registered the blow. “Throw the keys over here at my feet. Then shoot the arrow into its eyehole. Can you do it?”

  
He heard the keys hit the floor and seized them, rolling out of the way as the broadsword hacked into the stone floor where he had just been, throwing off sparks.

  
The explosion was so close it deafened him. He ducked, keeping his head down, and used the key to unlock the cuffs. When he looked up again, the _draug_ was headless, and the Hawk was contemplating an enormous chunk of skull, still attached to a twisted horn, that had landed at his feet.

  
Being headless had never stopped a _draug_ , and the thing came at Loki with its sword raised for a killing blow. Grimly standing his ground, Loki struck a light into the spray from the paint can, creating a long flame that consumed the monster like tinder. It roared as it died, leaving black sludge on the floor and ceiling.

  
Dropping to his knees, Loki sat back on his heels, breathing hard, and laughed. The wind whistled through the broken window, picking up the ashes and swirling them away.

  
“Well fought,” he said, looking at Hawkeye appraisingly. “I was right to say that you have heart. Enough heart to fight a monster from Hel.”

  
“Don’t flatter me,” Hawkeye said angrily. “You just said I had heart because you wanted to use me.” The battle high was still coursing through his veins; he visualized an arrow sticking out of Loki’s chest, the light fading from the former god’s eyes as his mouth sagged open in shock.

  
“And you still hate me for it,” Loki said with a smile. “But, tell me honestly, if _you_ could rule _me_ —all that I am, all that I know—would you not seize the chance?”

  
_Yes,_ echoed in Hawkeye’s mind. He scoffed instead and said, “I’d have to have shit for brains to listen to another word you say.”

  
Loki stood unsteadily and inspected his torn clothing, the deep scratches in his chest. “You lie to yourselves, you mortals,” he said quietly. “That’s why it is so easy for me to manipulate you.” He flashed a quick grin. “And now, I’d better leave before the rest of your little group arrives fresh from battle and decides to put me in chains again.”

  
“What if another of those things comes?”

  
“ _Draugar_ either come in threes or dozens. Hel wanted to make a point, not necessarily to kill me. I believe the attack is over.”

  
“And did she make her point?”

  
“Oh, yes,” Loki said ruefully. “Until my time comes—or until I recover my powers—I will not pass through her domain again.”

  
“Why did you go there? You could have put the whole city in danger. You—”

  
Loki’s face grew hard. “I am in a cage, and I am pacing its outlines. I doubt you would do any differently.” He removed his shredded coat and dropped it on the floor. “When you see Stark, tell him....” He trailed off as if listening.

  
“You’ll see him in a minute.”

  
Loki grinned. “No, I won’t.”

  
Without the coat covering it, the damage to Loki’s chest and arm looked serious enough to bother even Hawkeye. “Wait,” he said hesitantly, “you should have those wounds looked at.”

  
With a few long strides Loki stalked to the stairwell door and opened it. He grinned once more at Hawkeye. “On second thought, don’t tell Stark anything.” The heavy door closed after him. Hawkeye turned back and surveyed the damage to the room. Stark was going to be livid. He could have stopped Loki with an arrow, but he hadn’t wanted to. He wasn’t yet sure why that was.

  
“Jarvis?” he said to the air.

  
“Yes, sir?”

  
“Keep tabs on Loki. Don’t let him leave the building.”

  
“Easier said than done, sir. He has just cut the cable for the stairwell security cams.”

  
“Son of a bitch!” Hawkeye swore. “Seal all the exits if you have to, but don’t let him go. Tell Tony what’s going on.”

  
“Mr. Stark is on his way back to the tower,” Jarvis said calmly. “The drone attack has been averted. He should be here in eight minutes, 45 seconds.”

  
“Swell,” said Hawkeye, considering the devastation of the penthouse room. “Tell him I’m going after Loki down the stairwell.”

  
“Already done, sir. Mr. Stark requests that you do not kill Loki before he has had a chance to talk to him.”

  
“I’ll try,” Hawkeye said grimly, opening the stairwell door.

 ***

  
It took fifteen hours to track Loki down to an obscure corner of the basement heating system, where he was hiding, jammed between two ducts in the dark, hoping to wait out the search. They would never have found him if he hadn’t been bleeding so badly that it left traces everywhere: bloody hand and footprints in the stairwell, and later, drips and smears that he had been unable to conceal on the fly.

  
When Loki threatened them with his dagger, Hawkeye and a pair of security guards tasered him and dragged him out of his hiding place. They brought him to the lounge in Stark’s private quarters with his hands cuffed behind him. Banner and Stark were waiting for them there.

  
Loki was even paler than usual, his long, tangled hair hanging limply around his face and his chest a mass of raw wounds. As he was fastened to a chair, he fairly snarled at them. “Why don’t you let me go? I didn’t intend to lead the _draug_ to Stark Tower. I warned you that another one was coming. It’s your fault. You brought me here.”

  
“Easy, Wolfman,” Stark said. “We’re not going to make you stay. I just want the Big Guy to take a look at your chest and close those wounds for you.”

  
“Oh, yes, because you’re so concerned for my welfare, you chased me down inside your building and electrocuted me instead of just letting me leave,” Loki spat viciously, baring his teeth.

  
Stark ignored him, suppressing a retort about how it _was_ his building, and he had every right to search out a guy with a knife who was hiding in the basement. Because what was the use of trading gibes with the God of Bullshit?

  
Banner was cutting Loki’s shirt off and pulling the pieces gingerly out of the bloody mess that was his chest. “Some of these need stitches,” he said. “They’re deep. And you need a tetanus shot.”

  
“A what?” Loki asked angrily, his eyes flashing.

  
“These were made by claws, right?” Banner explained patiently. “Well, there could be certain germs left in the wounds that will cause a disease called lockjaw. This medicine will prevent it.”

  
“Lockjaw?” Loki’s laugh had a brittle, manic edge. “It sounds like a device that Odin would commission from the Dwarves.” He was trembling with shock and fury, glaring at them like a cornered animal.

  
Stark and Banner exchanged glances. Banner shrugged. “It’s an adrenaline reaction. He’s in shock from the taser and the wounds.”

  
“Can you give him a sedative with the tetanus shot?”

  
“No!” Loki cried indignantly, rising and struggling against his bonds. Hawkeye and the two security guards wrestled him back down into his chair.

  
“I’ll have to, if I’m going to clean up those cuts.” Banner prepared a shot and looked for a place to administer it. “Clint, can you hold him still?”

  
“Don’t touch me again,” Loki said, breathing raggedly. Ceasing his struggle, he looked at Banner as if warily acquiescing to the shot.

  
Keeping his eyes on Loki’s face, Banner rubbed a spot on his upper arm with alcohol and gave him the injection. In a minute, Loki’s breathing evened out and his head lolled to one side. Removing the cuffs from his hands, they took him out of the chair and laid him on a sofa. Donning rubber gloves, Banner knelt next to him and quickly started disinfecting the deep grooves in Loki’s chest with hydrogen peroxide and then iodine.

  
“How long do we have?” Stark asked.

  
“Long enough for a first pass,” Banner said. “I’m using steri-strips instead of stitches, since he’s not likely to come back to have stitches removed. If he wants to leave when he wakes up, will you let him?”

  
“Yeah,” said Stark, “if he wants to. I just couldn’t see letting him bleed to death or get some horrible infection.”

  
“You have to stop this, you know,” Banner said, his hands deftly blotting one of Loki’s cuts with gauze and closing it with steri-strips.

  
“Stop what?” Stark asked, although he knew.

  
“Taking care of this guy. Watching him. Sooner or later he’ll do something that will get him killed, and you’ll take the blame, but it won’t be on you. You’re too involved.”

  
“I know that.”

  
“Then, why? You keep saying he’s human—so, let him be human. Let him make his own mistakes and take the consequences.” Banner got some more steri-strips and antiseptic out of the first-aid kit.

  
“I keep thinking there’s a chance we can use him,” Stark said. “Think about what he knows, where he’s been. Think about him fighting by our side instead of against us.”

  
“If only...?” Banner prompted.

  
“Yeah, I got the memo. God of Chaos.”

  
Banner chuckled softly and shook his head. “This is where I tell you it’s a lost cause. If you could trust him—but you can’t. And it isn’t going to happen.”

  
“I don’t know. Maybe not complete trust, but...I don’t know. Advice? Maybe the occasional quid pro quo.”

  
Hawkeye spoke suddenly. “I have to admit, much as I hate the guy, he did a job on that zombie. He took responsibility for it, said it was after him, not me, kept telling me to get behind him. And when it came, he walked right up to it and tried to beat its head in with an office chair. He thought clearly even while he was an inch from dying. Loki has no fear. And that in itself is scary. He would be a valuable asset if he could be controlled, but he’s too unstable.”

  
“How well controlled are any of us?” Stark asked thoughtfully. “Remember when S.H.I.E.L.D. said the same about us?”

  
“Not about me, they didn’t,” Hawkeye said with an almost imperceptible smile. “For the moment we can continue to keep an eye on him, but if he keeps bringing hell down on us, we’re eventually going to have to lock him up or put him down.”

  
Banner finished cleaning and sealing Loki’s wounds and covered the whole area with gauze and tape. “He’s lost a bit of blood, and he’s dehydrated. I don’t want to start a line because he’ll probably rip it out, but he should at least have some food and liquids when he wakes up.”

  
Stark sent for bottled water and sandwiches. They cuffed Loki, hand and foot, and sat around waiting for him to wake up.

 ***

  
When Loki awoke he didn’t open his eyes until he had taken stock of what had changed in his environment. He was lying down—chained, of course—his shirt was gone, and his wounds hurt. They felt strangely stiff, and he had trouble identifying the sensation. There were others in the room with him, but they weren’t speaking. He opened his eyes. Banner and Stark sat across from him, looking at him speculatively.

  
“What have you done to me?” he asked slowly. His head was heavy with sleep. He was wary of their motives, but his fury had passed.

  
“I bandaged your wounds,” Banner said. “They’ll stop bleeding now.”

  
“But I’m still cuffed, and I’m still here. What do you want of me?” Loki sat up gingerly. His head was spinning, but he rode it out, not wanting them to know. “Where’s my dagger?” he asked indignantly.

  
“I have it,” said Hawkeye. “You tried to cut me with it.”

  
Loki scoffed. “Of course I did. You were coming to capture me.”

  
“And a few hours ago it was ‘well fought.’”

  
“We fought together and then we fought each other,” Loki said, shrugging. “Sides apparently shift quickly on Midgard.”

  
No one had a retort for that. Stark handed Loki a bottle of water and a sandwich. Loki uncapped the water and took a long swig.

  
“Why do you keep bringing me back here? Are you trying to recruit me?” He smiled and opened the sandwich. He might as well take advantage of food and drink while it was available.

  
“Something like that,” Stark said. “It doesn’t seem to be working out so far.”

  
“Why do you suppose that is?” Loki asked with false cheer. He devoured half a sandwich in three bites and finished the first bottle of water.

  
“Oh, I don’t know,” Stark said with irritation. “Maybe it’s because you were a prince and a god and you feel entitled. You’ve gotten away with everything you ever did, and now, for the first time in your life, you’re meeting consequences, because you’re human. You think people owe you something, but they don’t. And, worship? Forget it. You need to admit that you’re never going to get out of this city and find something else to do.”

  
Loki scoffed. “What do you suggest? Working for you? Or perhaps I could teach ‘Defense Against the Dark Arts’ at Hogwarts.” He had read a great variety of things in the library. The Harry Potter series had afforded him a revealing and fascinating glimpse of the inane fantasies Midgardians told themselves about the nature of magic.

  
Banner turned away, unsuccessfully trying to hide his smile, but Stark’s anger helped him keep a straight face. “Something like that. You need a gig.”

  
“A gig?” Loki paused, holding half a sandwich in the air.

  
“Something to do—a job. Maybe that’s too much to ask of you. But find something to do, even if it’s sitting in the park feeding the pigeons. Something besides stalking around the city and visiting your friends in hell.”

  
“Hel is hardly my friend,” Loki scoffed cheerfully, “but I like the way you are trying to reform me into a good human citizen.”

  
Stark leaned forward. “If you don’t want to keep ending up here, then you’d better figure out something you can do for yourself.”

  
“I’ll be sure to stop attracting your attention, just as soon as I leave New York,” Loki promised wryly.

  
“Odin’s lesson is lost on you, isn’t it?” Stark snapped. “You got stuck down here because you fucked the place up. Chitauri army! Ring any bells? He might just as well have executed you. Instead he tried to teach you something. And you aren’t learning it.”

  
Loki finished a long swallow of water before answering.

  
“There are only two ways to think about things, isn’t that it? Right and wrong, love and hate, good and evil. How limited you mortals are! And how incomprehensible you find me.” He opened a second sandwich, looked at it with distaste, although it was the same kind as the first one, and replaced it on the table. “Why not stop trying to put everything into a category? Why make everything about morality?”

  
Stark stared at him blankly for a moment. “You don’t always understand why you do things, either, do you?”

  
Loki just laughed.


	5. Loki's Winter

Banner slouched into the video room carrying two open bottles of Coke.

  
“I thought I might find you here,” he said, sitting next to Stark and handing him a bottle. “What’s on Stark T.V. today? All Loki, all the time?”

  
“Loki gets a paper route,” Stark said. He was sprawled in the chair as if he’d been there for many hours. His clothes were rumpled and he needed a shave. “Jarvis, send up some sandwiches and coffee.”

  
“Right away, sir.”

  
“How long have you been here?” Banner asked, concern evident in his voice.

  
“Since last night.”

  
“Jesus.” Banner took a long swig of Coke and grimaced. “You really have to stop this. Remember what we talked about?”

  
“Are you done, Mom?” Stark said. “Yeah, I’ve been reviewing the ‘Best of Loki,’ trying to figure something out. So sue me.” Banner made as if to rise. “Wait. I have something to show you.”

  
The screen showed two men sitting at a table in Washington Square Park. One wore a black coat and had long, dark hair. Banner squinted at the screen. “Is that Loki? Playing chess?”

  
“Hustling chess, more like, but whatever.”

  
Banner looked at Stark in surprise. “So, when you told him to get a gig last week, he—”

  
“He did. Sort of. Bought a chess set at a junk store and set up here. He picks pockets, too, and cheats at cards. For money, of course.”

  
Banner whistled. “How did he learn all those games so fast?”

  
Stark shrugged. “Quick study. I never said the God of Lies was dumb.”

  
“That’s not worth watching all night.”

  
Now the images were flashing by blindingly fast in reverse while Stark watched the time stamp.

  
“Here. Watch from here.” He leaned in, and Banner did the same.

  
Loki was sitting at another table now near the kids’ playground, but this time he was wearing a watch cap and fingerless gloves. Between moves, he put his fist to his mouth with his elbow resting on the table and looked bored. Four moves went by in this fashion.

  
“What am I looking for?” Banner asked, sure there was a point here somewhere.

  
“You can’t tell yet, but Loki is watching this guy.” Stark indicated a stocky blonde man wearing a sport coat and tie who was walking around the perimeter of the playground. He fast-forwarded at double speed. The guy walked out of the frame on the left and in again on the right.

  
“He’s circling the playground. Is he casing it?” Banner asked, shocked.

  
“That he is,” said Stark. He slowed down the film to normal. “Watch.”

  
A group of teenagers cut diagonally across the playground, kicking up sand and shoving each other playfully, making a distraction. Quickly, the man darted behind them to pick up a little girl and take off running. Loki was off his seat like a shot, running with long strides, his hair streaming back. Overtaking the man, Loki stopped right in his path to confront him. As the guy dropped the struggling girl, Loki caught her, set her on her feet, and said something to her. She ran out of the frame. The guy swung at Loki, hitting him in the face. Loki went down, but as he rose, he kneed the guy in the crotch and chopped him in the throat. The man fell bonelessly. Loki lifted him up by his jacket and spoke into his face before dropping him and shoving him hard towards the street with a kick for emphasis. A uniformed security guard from a nearby building took the guy in a hold and marched him off camera. Loki brushed the sand carefully off his coat and walked slowly towards his table, feeling his cheek gingerly with two fingers. A couple of women ran up to him. One took his hand and held it, talking earnestly into his face. Loki nodded to her stiffly and returned to his seat.

  
“Wow,” breathed Banner.

  
“Yeah. I’ve been sitting here all night wondering why he did it.”

  
There was a knock at the door. A young woman from the Stark Tower cafeteria, wearing a catering uniform and accompanied by a security guard, entered with a tray of sandwiches and coffee. She laid it on the counter and left.

  
Banner passed the plate to Stark, who took half a sandwich, and then took one himself. “I guess I shouldn’t say, ‘Because it was the right thing to do, and even Loki knew that.’ It’s possible, right?”

  
Stark kept staring at the screen, now showing the present, where Loki’s opponent tipped his own queen over with one finger and handed Loki a bill.

  
“Maybe yes, maybe no.” Stark poured himself a cup of coffee. “I think I’ll go have a talk with him.”

 ***

  
If Tony hadn’t seen Loki since the Battle of New York, he would hardly have recognized him, bent over a chessboard at a table in Washington Square Park. During his time in New York, Loki’s hair had grown below his shoulders, but he still had no trace of a beard. He wore a watch cap pulled down around his face, and sported a fresh cut and a colorful bruise on his left cheekbone. Loki’s quick green eyes watched his opponent, a small, balding man in an expensive-looking tweed jacket. The man slowly lifted a pudgy hand to pick up a knight and set it down tentatively, hesitating to remove his fingers from it.

  
Stark approached the table. “Is this a bad time?” he asked.

  
Loki favored him with a cursory glance. “What am I being blamed for now?” he drawled. “And I to be beaten or imprisoned this time? Or perhaps both?”

  
The balding man stared and looked suddenly nervous. “Is he a cop?” he asked, gesturing at Stark.

  
“No,” said Loki seriously, “he thinks he’s a superhero.” He reached down and took the just-moved knight with his queen’s bishop. “Mate in nine,” he said languidly.

  
“Really?” The guy looked from the board to Loki incredulously.

  
Loki narrowed his eyes. “Try me.”

  
“Damn it,” swore the little man. He pulled a twenty from his wallet and tossed it on the board in Loki’s general direction.

  
“It’s always a pleasure,” Loki sneered, picking up the bill. The little man made himself scarce, glancing nervously back at Stark.

  
Stark stared at the board. “Mate in nine? I don’t see it,” he admitted finally.

  
Loki flashed his feral smile. He hadn’t lost any teeth. “Neither did I.”

  
“What happened to your face?” Stark asked, gesturing at his cheek. “Someone recognize you?”

  
“Some people don’t like to lose.” Loki chuckled softly. “Care for a game? Since you obviously aren’t going to tell me why you’re here.”

  
“Some other time. I’m here because I want to make a deal with you.”

  
Loki started packing his chess pieces away in a worn box that had a chessboard printed on its hinged back. “A deal.” He considered. “Do you have anything I want?”

  
“I would say almost everything, at this point,” Stark said.

  
Loki shrugged. “You don’t have my magic.”

  
“Forget about that. You’ll never get it back as long as Odin wants to keep you here.”

  
Loki kept his eyes on the chess pieces. “That remains to be seen,” he said stiffly.

  
“Come on. I’ll buy you a burger,” Stark offered. Loki’s face looked pale and strained, and Jarvis had reported that he seemed to have caught a cold and was eating even less than usual.

  
“I would accept a coffee,” Loki said as if according a great favor.

  
“Coffee, then,” said Stark, ignoring the arrogance.

  
Loki picked up his chess set and the two walked towards a busy café on the south side of the square. The weak winter sunlight did little to warm the cold air. Stark stuffed his fists in the pockets of his jacket. Loki’s coat was open, his neck and hands bare. Stark wondered if he was as insensitive to the cold as he seemed.

  
Stark paid for the coffee and they sat together at a table by the window that had just been vacated. The small place pulsed with the noise of loud conversations occasionally punctuated by the shrieks of bored children.

  
Facing Loki across the table, Stark suddenly felt uncomfortable. Loki stared moodily into his cup, stirring the liquid around and around with a wooden stirrer, as if divining a message there. Loki was waiting him out—no chance of a casual conversation starting naturally.

  
“So, you’ve been playing chess.”

  
Loki spared him a glance and looked back at his coffee. “As you know.”

  
“Do you have a place to stay?” From Jarvis’s surveillance, Stark knew that Loki was still sleeping outdoors or in the filthy lobbies of the few, run-down apartment buildings he could manage to get into at night. Once in a while he still rented a room in a cheap hotel, but with his limited means he still spent most of his nights in the cold.

  
Loki shrugged. “I find places.” He looked up and met Stark’s eyes. “Why are you here?”

  
“Winter is coming. I wanted to offer you a flop.”

  
Loki laughed. “A flop? It doesn’t sound very appetizing.”

  
“A room. A place to stay when the weather gets cold.”

  
“In Stark tower? A room with a view and chains?” Loki raised his eyebrows and smiled his broadest smile.

  
For the last few moments, Stark had been getting more and more annoyed but trying not to show it. All at once he gave up the pretense. “You think I want you in Stark Tower? They’re still repairing the damage from your last visit.”

  
Loki laughed with pleasure at having provoked him, which made Stark wonder why the hell he was bothering. “It’s a room in a building I own near Union Square,” he said, wanting to get done with this and be on his way, “a basement room. Nothing grand. But it has a heater and a bed. I don’t expect anything in return. It’s just a flop.”

  
Loki tapped the stirrer on the rim of his cup and put it aside. He took a sip of coffee and looked again at Stark. “Why are you trying so hard to keep me alive?”

  
“Because I thought you deserved a chance like any other man,” he said, meeting Loki’s eyes unflinchingly. “And because I thought someday you might help us.”

  
“I, help the Avengers?” Loki savored the thought and the words. “That is...unexpected.”

  
“No, it isn’t,” Stark said with open irritation. “If you don’t understand that I hoped I could tap into your knowledge then you’re stupider than I thought.”

  
Loki laughed appreciatively but didn’t speak. He drank more coffee.

  
“Let’s stop playing games,” Stark said, disgusted with himself for falling for Loki’s bullshit again. “You want a place to stay? I’m offering. Take it or leave it.”

  
“I think I shall...leave it,” Loki said, looking at him seriously. “I have no desire to stay in your building, to be observed, or healed, or fed, or protected by you. Odin and Thor abandoned me on this world, in this city, and if they don’t care whether I live or die, why should you?”

  
Stark looked at him silently for a moment. He felt less uncomfortable now, but he was intensely frustrated. “You’re actually going to keep sleeping rough because you’re too proud to accept a hand? Because you want your family to feel bad when you suffer and die?”

  
It was Loki’s turn to look irritated. “They’re not my—”

  
Stark had heard enough. “Yes, they are. They’re your family.” The words were bitten off, staccato.

  
Loki laughed, and his eyes darkened with spite. For just a second Stark could read the depth of the pain and wrath Loki carried, and it startled him into standing up.

  
“I trust we shall not meet again,” Loki said with a nasty, knowing smile. _Another one who is done with me_ , those eyes seem to say.

  
Stark didn’t know what to reply to that. Leaving his untouched coffee on the table, he left and walked west on 4th to get a cab uptown, with Loki’s bitter smile haunting him all the way.

 ***

  
When Stark left, Loki finished his coffee and drank Stark’s, too. The urge to cough finally became too strong to resist and he gave in to it. People at neighboring tables looked at him apprehensively. They were afraid of what he might have, worrying that it could spread to them. His chest hurt badly, inside and out. Every time he coughed like this, the cuts from the _draugar_ fight stretched and bled. The cough whistled through his throat, clawing at it. When the coughing fit had passed, he had trouble catching his breath.

  
When finally the stares grew too oppressive, he left, heading west on Washington Place towards the subway. So, his suspicions had been correct. Stark had known where he was sleeping, and therefore had been watching him, probably through the cameras placed everywhere throughout this city. Loki knew a bench in the station that was out of range of the security cameras where he could sit for a few hours out of the cold. Then would come the daily decision of where to pass the night. A cheap hotel tonight, perhaps, if he could afford it, and if he had the energy to find one.

  
As he entered the stairwell, he caught a glimpse of a man in a dark suit with an earpiece walking away from him towards Waverly. They didn’t even bother to conceal themselves. Stark had offered him a place to sleep, and S.H.I.E.L.D. was closing in. He had been seeing agents for the past few days. Not a coincidence then, that Stark had visited. What did they think they could get from him? Why did they think he would cooperate?

  
He reached the bench and found himself out of breath. He coughed again and had trouble stopping. People moved away. S.H.I.E.L.D. and Stark were obviously engaged in a conflict over his fate. S.H.I.E.L.D. or Stark, Stark or S.H.I.E.L.D., what did it matter? His only choice seemed to be to allow this disease to consume him and have it done with—the struggle, the weakness, the pain, the monotony.

  
He finished coughing, feeling lightheaded. Blood speckled his hand. A passive death, then, by disease, and back to Niflheim with the sheep-like hordes of the dead from every world. _It could have ended better_ , he thought, resting his head against the wall and closing his eyes. _It could have been a better life._ And then he thought, _Thor, oh, Thor, my brother. So many mistakes._

 ***

  
One morning in early December the weather turned, and all over New York, people woke up and thought, _Winter is here._

  
Early fall had been as cold as usual, with temperatures hovering around freezing, but this deep chill was new. The ground was iron hard and the remnants of brown grass in the park were interlaced with frost. The sky looked uniformly grey with a pale green tinge to it. Snow was coming.

  
Loki had passed the night in the lobby of an apartment building in Hell’s Kitchen from which he had been rousted by the custodian an hour before dawn. The next few hours before the coffee shops opened he had spent huddled into his coat in the doorway of a building, out of the wind, near a subway grating, trying to stay warm in the occasional puffs of stale, fetid air. He was coughing more often now than ten days ago when he had last seen Stark, and each time he coughed he thought his lungs might burst. He wondered if he was near death. But still he managed to stay out of the way of cameras that might reveal the state of his health to Stark and his friends at S.H.I.E.L.D. He refused to be healed by them just to remain a captive forever, an object of curiosity.

  
He had less money now. Picking pockets, and even beating gullible fools at chess, required more strength than he now possessed.

  
He must have slept for a while, because when he opened his eyes it was lighter, and the sidewalks were full of people rushing back and forth wearing thick winter coats and hats. He wondered why he didn’t feel the cold as much as before. Though the cold air stung his nostrils, he felt hot and light-headed. A few white flakes fell from the sky. He decided to go to the bodega and buy a cup of coffee.

  
Staggering to his feet, he found that he had to hold on to the side of the building with one hand to stay upright. He reached the door and pushed awkwardly inside. As he entered, a man in a dark suit with an earpiece turned and stared at him impassively. It was Coulson, the man he had killed on Fury’s airship.

  
A minute later, with no memory of how he got there, he was sitting on the floor by the coffee machine and Mr. Rubio was squatting down looking at him with fear and concern in his eyes. Coulson stood a bit apart with a smug smile on his face, talking quietly into his communication device.

  
Loki leaned towards Mr. Rubio and tried to speak. “Not...him.” The cough scratched at the back of his throat, trying to get out.

  
“What did you say?” Mr. Rubio handed him an open bottle of water, but Loki shook his head, afraid it would bring the coughing on.

  
“Don’t let him take me.”

  
“But you’re very ill. You need to go to the hospital.”

  
Loki closed his eyes for a moment, gathering his strength. “Not him,” he repeated. “Stark. Call Tony Stark.”

 ***

  
Loki missed the argument between Stark and Coulson over his body, having passed into oblivion long before while Mr. Rubio had been attempting to call Stark Tower. A pair of paramedics had examined him and strapped him to a gurney, and had then been invited to wait in their vehicle while Stark and Coulson finished their discussion.

  
“If you take him, what will you do with him?” Stark asked belligerently.

  
“That’s ‘need-to-know,’” Coulson replied with an annoying little smile.

  
Stark’s voice rose a few decibels. “Life imprisonment? Torture? Will anyone ever see him again?”

  
Banner laid a thick hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Easy, Tony,” he said. “It might be for the best if—”

  
Stark shook him off. “Jarvis, call Thor,” he ordered suddenly. “Tell him to get his Viking ass over here right now if he wants to see Loki alive.”

  
“But I thought you said—” Banner began.

  
“Never mind,” Stark said significantly. He turned once again to Coulson. “Whose orders are you acting under? Or are you just pissed off because he killed you? Or was that just another bullshit game?”

  
“No,” Coulson said quietly, “I was really dead.”

  
“Then what—”

  
“‘Need-to-know,’” Coulson countered quickly.

  
“Jesus.”

  
They stared at each other for a moment, Stark fuming and Coulson calm and bemused. Loki’s breath rattled in his chest.

  
“Ok, I’m done,” Stark said suddenly. “He’s going to die right here while we fight over him. Bruce, tell the paramedics to come back in. He’s going to Stark Tower. Jarvis, we need a hospital bed and some medical equipment. Dr. Banner will tell you what else.” Banner sighed and walked out to the street. Stark turned again to Coulson. “You know where I live if you need to talk to me. By the way, tell me something—why didn’t you pick him up before? Why wait until now?”

  
Coulson shrugged. “We didn’t know how sick he was. And we wanted to see what else he would do.”

  
Banner returned with the paramedics, who carried Loki out to the ambulance.

  
“He didn’t do anything. He walked around in circles and drank a lot of coffee. He played chess, picked a few pockets. What could he do without his powers?” Stark’s voice was hoarse with frustration.

  
“He went to hell. We learned that we need to close down those pathways.”

  
Banner smiled for the first time. “Have any pedestrians wandered down there by accident lately?”

  
Coulson looked at him expressionlessly, his smile faded. “That’s ‘need-to-know,’” he said.

  
As Coulson walked out to join his men, Mr. Rubio approached Stark. “Excuse me, Mr. Stark?”

  
“Yes?”

  
“Who was he?” He gestured towards the ambulance that was screaming east towards Park Avenue. “Was he important?”

  
Stark was in no mood for dissembling. “You remember the Battle of New York last year?” Rubio nodded. “You remember Loki?”

  
Mr. Rubio’s eyes widened in shock. “Oh, my god,” he said softly. “I thought he looked familiar. But he seemed so polite. Such a good customer.”


	6. Loki's Story

Thor stood morosely looking down at Loki, who lay on a hospital bed, breathing quietly. He was hooked up to an IV and a monitor that beeped softly in time with his heartbeat. They were in a spare bedroom in Stark’s private quarters, a room that opened off the lounge they used as a meeting place.

  
“I knew I should have come sooner. I intended to come, but I put it off from day to day, and now it is too late.” Thor’s voice was strained with worry.

  
Banner stood next to him, shifting uncomfortably. “It might not be too late. He could pull through. It depends on how well the antibiotics work. It was a pretty bad case of pneumonia, but he’s young, and he seems to be holding his own now.”

  
“Is it really necessary to chain him to the bed?” Thor’s face showed a poignant mixture of sadness and frustration.

  
“Yes,” Banner said, wondering how Thor could imagine it wasn’t. “He hasn’t exactly been cooperative when we’ve encountered him before.”

  
“Forgive me,” Thor said. “I know how my brother is, but I always like to remember him as he was, before all his troubles started.”

  
“Was he ever”—Banner brushed off the word “normal”—“trustworthy?”

  
Thor laughed ruefully. “Not exactly. But he was not what he is now, either. He was my younger brother. I loved him, and he loved me. There was a time when we understood each other so well there was almost no need to speak, and yet we always did.”

  
“He could be like this another few days or longer, perhaps a week. I have no way of knowing.” Banner turned to go back out to the lounge, from which he monitored Loki nearly 24 hours a day.

  
“Dr. Banner?” Thor said suddenly.

  
“Bruce,” Banner said automatically.

  
Thor nodded. “Bruce, I need to tell you all a story. It’s about Loki, about how he was in the old days, about something terrible that happened to him.”

  
“What happened to him?” Banner asked, surprised.

  
“I must gather our team, and we must drink together as I tell you the story. Otherwise, I....” He paused. “It is the kind of story that deserves respect, and ritual. A heroic story. A tragedy.”

  
“All right, Banner said. “I’ll tell Tony and the others. Maybe tonight?”

  
“Yes, tonight,” said Thor, taking another long look at his brother and then exiting into the lounge.

 ***

  
Natasha was on assignment in Ukraine, and Cap absolutely refused to drink to excess or to be around the others while they did.

  
“I have never abused alcohol, and I never intend to,” he said stiffly. “Even though my metabolism doesn’t let me get drunk, I never drink. There’s a principle at stake here.”

  
“But can’t you manage to be around us for a few hours, just to hear the story of Loki?” Stark asked, irritated. “It’s a team thing.”

  
“I agree with what Nat said at the beginning of all this. I don’t want to hear anything more about Loki,” Cap stated firmly.

  
“Your loss,” said Stark briefly, just as glad they wouldn’t be subjected to a temperance lecture.

There was a silence.

“My father was an alcoholic,” Cap admitted finally.

“Oh, sorry,” Stark mumbled. “Awkward.”

 ***

 

The remaining comrades gathered in the lounge at nine o’clock. Stark held the squat black bottle lovingly for a moment before pulling out the stopper and pouring a dram for each of them.

  
“We start with the amazing stuff,” he said. “The Dalmore, 1926.”

  
“What does that run you a bottle?” Banner asked, a bemused expression on his face.

  
“How rude of you to ask, Green Man,” Stark said, without looking very offended at all. “And the answer is you don’t want to know.”

  
“I only ask because you might not want to waste it on me. I—the Other Guy—he won’t let me get drunk.”

  
Thor looked at Banner with horror and pity in his eyes and shook his head.

  
Now Stark looked shocked. “This is not for getting drunk,” he said, affronted. “This is the elixir of the gods—just for a ceremonial toast. After that we go on to the regular good stuff.” He swathed the bottle lovingly in a velvet cloth, as if it had been his firstborn son, and laid it back in its rustic wooden cradle and then in a drawer, which he carefully locked. He took another bottle from an overhead shelf on the bar.

  
“What’s the regular good stuff?” Banner asked with a wry smile.

  
Stark looked at him expressionlessly. “Something tells me you are not taking this seriously enough. The Dalmore, 18 years, of course. That’s what we get drunk on.”

  
Hawkeye just hung his head and laughed silently, but Thor took the bottle from Stark’s hand and considered it with approval. It carried the metal effigy of a stag’s head. “I am happy to drink with you finally, my brothers-in-arms,” he said heartily.

  
“And we are looking forward to hearing your story. Finally,” said Stark, with more than a hint of impatience.

  
Pepper came through the open door with her mouth half open as if she had been about to say something. When she saw the glasses and the bottle, she smiled indulgently and shook her head. “I guess it’s boys’ night in,” she said brightly. “I see. Tony, I’m going downstairs, and I’m closing my door, and I’m not coming back up here until morning, when—”

  
“Yes, dear,” Tony said, without having the least idea in the world of what she was about to say.

  
She sighed, and walked around the coffee table to kiss him goodnight. “Never mind. Just don’t pass out without locking Loki in,” she said. “Promise?”

  
“Yes, dear.” This time he looked more responsive.

  
“Good night, then,” she said, waving from the doorway. She closed the door behind her and the room fell silent.

  
Stark stood and handed each of the men a dram of the good stuff. “Now,” he said seriously, “some stories need to be told with liquor, and apparently this is one of them. Drink up everyone.”

  
Each man sipped from his shot glass except for Thor, who tossed his back neatly and then roared with pleasure. “A worthy drink!” he pronounced.

  
“Now,” said Hawkeye, “the story of Loki and the Dwarves?”

  
Thor’s face grew sad and he cast his eyes down. “Yes,” he said, “I will tell it, and I will fairly show my part in it, which I am not proud of. You must remember that we were both young, very young. And we had sometimes done things that we should not have done.

  
“It all started when Loki magicked away Lady Sif’s hair.”

  
“So, Loki started it,” Hawkeye muttered. “No surprise there. Why would he cut off someone’s hair?”

  
Stark gestured at Hawkeye to be quiet, and Thor paused for what seemed like a long time.

  
“How can I give you an idea of Asgard in those days?” Thor mused sadly, turning his empty glass between his thumb and forefinger. “Loki and I were inseparable. We sparred, hunted, and traveled together, and—yes—we even played tricks together. But I had started spending more time with Sif, and a rivalry started between them. Ah, she had the most wonderful golden hair in those days!

  
“One day, Sif insulted Loki grievously, laughed at him, which he never could abide, and a few days later she did not appear at court in the morning, nor in the afternoon. When a servant was asked to inquire after her, she found that Sif was hiding in her chambers, for, sometime in the night, all her hair had been magicked away, and her head was as bald as a baby’s bottom.

  
“Sif begged the servant to come only to me, because she knew the ridicule that would follow her if aught knew of her plight.”

  
Stark broke the seal on the new bottle and poured shots all around.

  
“Nice place, Asgard,” Banner commented with a shake of his head. “People would laugh at her because Loki played a nasty trick?”

  
“ _I_ did not laugh,” Thor said, after pausing to toss back his drink. “I went to Loki—for I was certain the trick was one of his—and I threatened him. I told him to make it right, but he swore that the spell could not be reversed without great danger. I told him to find some other way, or surely I would punish him. That is when Loki promised me he would do everything in his power to fix the spiteful trick he had played.”

  
Thor took the bottle in his large hand and poured himself another. No one asked the obvious question.

  
“So, without telling anyone of his plans, Loki entered the secret paths that he alone knew, and traveled to the land of the Dwarves.”

 ***

  
Loki was adrift between worlds in a golden sea, caught in the branches of Yggdrasil, waving above him like golden hair. And, as he floated, he seemed to hear Thor’s voice, telling a tale of what had happened long ago, between them, in Asgard.

  
At first, he was not sure if his spirit was still in his body, or if he had died and was spiraling down through the branches, down, down to Hel. For surely he belonged with Hel’s faceless legions, rather than in golden Valhalla with Thor and Odin. For his magic, for his jealousy, for his spite.

  
Golden light flashed in his eyes, and it made him think of Sif. Golden hair cascaded in the sunlight as Thor and Sif rode out on the trails where Thor and Loki liked to ride. Lady Sif, the beautiful, the bold, she of the careless tongue. When she had caught him in bed with Thor, she had called him _argr_ , cock-lover, a man who likes to be fucked. And in Asgard, it was necessary to answer such an insult with a challenge to fight, lest it be thought of as true. Whether it was true or not. But when a woman said the word, even if she was a warrior, and she was the beloved of Thor, what could Loki do?

The brighter Sif’s flaxen hair shone, the darker grew Loki’s thoughts. He wanted to tear it out of her head. And, if he could, he imagined that it would tear Thor from her side. So, one night, he concocted a spell, a dangerous unweaving of time that could have killed her, or him, that could have opened a fissure between universes where none should exist and pulled everything that existed in after it. But Loki did it perfectly. And, in the morning, Lady Sif existed as she always had, except that her hair had never been. It was a perfect little self-sustaining paradox. Everyone at court remembered her hair as it had been the day before, and yet her scalp was blank, had never grown hair and never would. And this ensured that Loki could not be forced to undo his spell without the risk of throwing all of time out of balance.

  
Then he was on his way to Svartalfheim, home of the Dark Elves and the Dwarves and their undying forges. And he knew what was going to happen. It would happen again, just as it had before. The most horrible thing that had ever happened to him, the thing he had succeeded for years in pushing from his mind, the story he had never told. And sometimes he thought it was his own fault, but surely he never deserved what he got, because he had made the debt good—he had restored Sif’s golden hair.

  
But deep down he knew that his punishment had not been retribution for what he’d done to Sif, or to the Dwarves. It had been for his words. He had talked and talked, he had filled up hours and days and whole kingdoms with words, words, words. He had lied and boasted and wheedled and argued, and he had gotten his way until the very end, the moment when he thought to be lauded for his cleverness, when suddenly Odin and Thor had betrayed him. He had paid for their golden gifts with blood, pain, and humiliation, and everyone had laughed. It had never left his memory, and now it was being told again. Thor was telling it so that the Avengers could laugh at him too. The story, and the words he had said, would follow him until the end of his days.

 ***

  
“So, Loki arrived at Svartalfheim, where the Dark Elves are said to dwell underground. On the surface of Svartalfheim is Nidavellir, the Dark Fields, home to the skillful Dwarves with their undying forges. And when he got there, two Dwarves, the sons of Ívaldi, who were master craftsmen, had just finished making Gungnir, the powerful staff that Odin wields to this very day, and Skidbladnir, a boat so skillfully fashioned that it could sail anywhere, even to the ends of the universe, and yet it could be folded up and carried in one’s pocket, and it would never weigh more than a feather.”

  
The others were afraid to interrupt now, for Thor’s voice had settled into a pleasing rhythm. All his hesitations were gone. It was clear that he was accustomed to storytelling and had a gift for it. Stark kept the glasses filled, and Thor drank at a steady pace as he spoke.

  
“Loki began by flattering the Dwarves, by talking about all the wonderful things that they had made—and here he was not lying, because the works of the Dwarves are splendid and without peer in any universe.

  
“Next he told them tales of the riches of Asgard, for truly my father’s kingdom is the richest of the Nine Realms, and Dwarves love nothing better than gold. And somehow he made them think that if Odin saw the wonders that they had made, they would receive piles of shining gold for their pains, but all the while he was thinking of a way to get their work for nothing.”

  
“Sounds like Loki,” Hawkeye muttered. The bottle went around the table once more and was emptied. Stark rose to fetch a new one.

  
“Finally, he got to the real point of his visit: he asked them to make a shining mane of hair for Sif, a shock of golden curls that would look even more splendid than her own, the hair that never was.

  
“The Dwarves were so stirred up by his praise that they set to work immediately. They worked day and night, while Loki watched, fascinated. And, after the passing of three days and three nights, they produced tresses fit for a goddess. Loki, making ever more promises, took all three items—for now he had convinced them to give him everything—and set off for Asgard.”

 ***

  
Loki remembered what it was like to journey home with the fabulous gifts he had tricked the Dwarves into giving him. Gungnir hummed with power; Skidbladnir sailed on the seas between the worlds silently, propelled by its own wind, steering to every feather-light touch on the tiller; and Sif’s hair was a gossamer wonder—a mass of silk-fine hairs made out of gold that threw off light like fire. Loki was enchanted with his own cleverness in getting these things from the Dwarves. He was bursting with pride and he couldn’t wait to boast before the whole court and receive his reward. He had almost forgotten that he had promised the Dwarves fabulous payment. And he had almost forgotten about the mean trick he had played. But no one else had.

 ***

  
“When Loki arrived home at Odin’s palace, everyone was waiting to see if he could fulfill his promise. The gifts he had brought were wonderful, unexpected, but Loki, as always, could not let things speak for themselves. He began by telling the story of his journey and of the skill of the Dwarves in working their forge. Then, one at a time, he produced each object, telling first the story of its making—which, for Gungnir and Skidbladnir he had not actually seen with his own eyes, and so he was making up a story.”

  
“Loki, lying? What a surprise,” Hawkeye put in wryly.

  
“But the court was pleased with his clever tales, encouraging him to ever greater excesses, and they applauded when he presented Gungnir to Odin and Skidbladnir to Freyr, one of the Vanir. Loki was happy with his success, but he had left the best for last. Bringing Sif forward—the poor girl wore a veil, so ashamed was she of her baldness—Loki made a pretty apology. He now told the story of the forging of the wonderful mane of hair—how the sons of Ívaldi had pounded the gold threads fine, ever finer, for three whole days and nights, until they had matched the glory of the sun. Loki produced the thing suddenly in a patch of sunlight, and the whole court gasped with awe. When it touched Sif’s scalp, it took root there and became as her own hair.

  
“Sif was still furious, but she had to pretend to look kindly upon Loki. When Loki told her to beware, lest Sól become jealous of her radiance, Sif laughed graciously to be so flattered, but her eyes remained hard.

  
“And so all was well in Asgard.” Thor paused to pour himself a shot, and then another in quick succession. He offered the bottle to Hawkeye, who passed it without pouring another, and to Banner, who matched him, shot for shot. Stark, like Barton, made no move for the bottle.

  
“That’s the end of the story?” Stark asked. “Loki cheated everybody and got away with it, The End?”

  
“Alas, no,” said Thor, and his voice grew a shade hoarser, with the whiskey, perhaps, or with some dark thought.

  
“All was well in Asgard for about five minutes,” Hawkeye offered.

  
“As you say,” Thor assented, “for another Dwarf, named Brokk, was present at court that day, a being so quiet and small that none noticed him, but he saw everything.”

 ***

  
Brokk was a diminutive, wiry being with a pinched face and the hooked nose common among Dwarves. He dressed in the plain leather clothes of a workman, and his hands and face were worn and scarred with toil at the forge. Brokk challenged Loki’s praises for the sons of Ívaldi, saying that his brother Sindri could make golden objects more wondrous still, that Gungnir and Skidbladnir were mere toys compared with the works of Sindri.

  
But Loki was euphoric, carried away on a tide of adulation and showers of golden praise, gold in his eyes, flashing falsely, blinding him to his limits, and he remembered how it felt to float there, feeling so powerful, as if his clever mind could always find a way to overcome any resistance to his will. He saw a way to cheat all the Dwarves out of their gold and their labor—he would pit them against each other in a contest, to be judged by Odin. The stakes would be high, but irresistible to Brokk, who had hated Loki for many years. It was a dangerous risk, but surely Odin would protect his son, as Thor would protect his brother. So, in complete confidence, Loki pronounced the fateful words: “I bet you my head.”

 ***

  
Banner whistled softly. “Loki bet his life? Just like that?”

  
Thor sat hunkered over, his elbows on his knees, hanging his head. “He always does,” he said bitterly, reaching for his glass.

 ***

  
Loki remembered, and it was almost as if he were there again.

  
Brokk went home to Nidavellir, and Loki followed, flying after him disguised as a raven. He listened from the roof of the forge, ruffling his feathers, his head cocked to one side, as Brokk told his brother of the challenge and the stakes of the wager, and asked him to create three unsurpassed works that would carry the day.

  
“You fool,” Sindri had said angrily. “If we lose, all my labor will be wasted, and the Æsir will have our gold.

  
“We will certainly win,” Brokk retorted. “And then we will be rid of that nuisance, the God of Mischief, who makes the knot burst in the firewood just as you are trying to do the most delicate work, and who makes the roof leak in winter when you are hiding from the cold in your house that a moment before was warm and snug. He plays tricks and makes things fall apart and muddles everyone’s minds with his lying words.”

  
“You are right, brother,” said Sindri. “Build up the fire and blow on it with the bellows to give me a nice, even flame.” He set to work immediately.

  
Loki, on the roof, had shivered his feathers with sudden fear. He began to think how hated he was, and how skillful these Dwarves really were. Just to make sure that he would win this bet, he turned into a wasp and buzzed around Brokk’s head as Sindri forged the first item, a golden boar with a mane and bristles of gold that could light up any darkness and carry a rider through any obstacle. Loki stung Brokk on the hand, and he cried out, but he kept the fire steady, and the boar came out of the fire perfectly formed.

  
When Sindri forged a ring of gold, Loki stung Brokk on the neck, over and over, but still he kept the bellows steady. This ring, Draupnir, made eight more gold rings every ninth day, and when it came from the forge, it was perfectly round and of a simple beauty that made Loki’s blood run cold. Well he knew Odin’s love of gold.

  
So when Sindri began to forge the last item—a giant hammer—Loki stung Brokk on one eyelid, and then on his other eyelid, and when the blood ran into his eyes, Brokk dropped the handles of the bellows and let the fire die down a little while he swatted at the wasp that had so grievously stung him. His hand slapped Loki a little too close to the fire, so that his wing was singed, but the damage to Sindri’s work was done. Loki escaped back to the roof and became a raven, cawing hoarsely in delight, so sure was he that the hammer was ruined. He didn’t wait for it to come out of the fire before flying swiftly back to Asgard to wait for Brokk’s arrival with his golden gifts. At the time, in Loki’s mind, he had already won.

  
But now he felt disaster coming, wondered how he hadn’t seen it there, staring him in the face like his own image in the mirror.

  
Mjolnir hadn’t been ruined. Because of Loki’s interference, it carried a flaw: its haft was too short for the bulk of its head, and, in that dissymmetry, in that almost human failing, lay all its power.

 ***

  
Thor’s face was flushed, and his eyes were a little red around the rims, his eyelids a little heavy. Stark was sitting back in his chair, hands flat on the arms as if holding himself steady in a gale, while Hawkeye looked glassy-eyed, sitting cross-legged on the couch and rubbing his hands over his face and eyes. Banner looked as he always did: a little morose, a little puzzled, as if there was a question right at the tip of his tongue, but wide-awake and interested.

  
“So, I’m assuming this does not end well,” Banner said.

  
Thor shook his head. “No one, except perhaps the All-Father, got everything he really wanted. Least of all Loki.

  
“Odin had Gungnir and Draupnir, and these cemented for him his power and his fortune. Freyr received Skidbladnir and the Golden Boar that Runs on Any Path, thus appeasing the Vanir, with whom the Æsir had recently fought a war. As for myself....” He looked fondly at the hammer beside him on the floor, his eyes softening as if they regarded a person. “I received the privilege of wielding Mjolnir, and, with that, my father made me his first defender and the leader of his armies.”

  
“And the contest?” asked Banner, with a little wince, as if he knew.

  
“Mjolnir was judged the finest object because it—” Thor stopped suddenly, and his mouth sagged with guilt and sorrow. “Because it was judged to be the most useful weapon against the Jotunar, the Ice Giants.” He swallowed hard. “None of us then knew Loki’s parentage, of course, save Odin. Loki had not the least idea.”

  
“So Brokk claimed Loki’s head,” Stark said, “but obviously he didn’t get it, so there must have been a god intervention. Was it like Rumpelstiltskin? Odin said his true name so he broke himself in two? And—tah-dah!—Loki was saved?”

  
Thor looked confused. His thoughts and words were coming through the alcoholic haze more slowly now. “No, no, Loki was not saved, though he did not lose his head.” With heroic effort he poured one more drink into his tiny shot glass, only slopping half as much on the table. “No, not saved,” he mumbled, and then he looked at his friends in the eyes, each one in turn. “That was the night Loki was lost.”

 ***

  
Brokk came up to him, and of course he only reached Loki’s waist, so Loki was ready to laugh at him, but when the Dwarf pulled out his dagger and said, “Yield to me now your head, and keep your bargain, God of Lies,” Loki’s blood gelled with anger and fear at once. Anger that Odin had judged against him, and fear that he would now compound that betrayal by allowing this upstart Dwarf to kill his son. Would Odin allow the head of a prince of Asgard to be carried on a pike to dark Svartalfheim, to molder as a grim trophy in the Dwarves’ shadowed halls? Would the blood of an Æsir be shed in the palace of Odin? Had the world gone mad?

  
Choosing the easiest path, Loki slipped into an invisible glamour and fled, but when his boot made a scuffmark on the marble just inside the door of Odin’s Great Hall, Thor threw Mjolnir and felled him as he ran, knocking him out of the glamour. All the Æsir, who, moments before, had been awed by the objects Loki had tricked from the Dwarves, laughed and applauded Thor’s prowess. Thor looked so proud to be showing off his new toy, fawning before his father. They had never looked so much alike.

  
Loki lay there stunned by Mjolnir’s power, and Thor picked him up like a stray kitten and threw him down at Brokk’s feet. With everyone’s eyes on him, Loki carefully stood. His life was in his own hands now, and he had to find the words to save it. Never had he felt so alone.

  
“Brokk,” he said reasonably, smiling, “there is no need to kill me. I possess objects of value, or gold if you prefer, to redeem my head. We can strike a better bargain.”

  
But Brokk stood firm. “Wealth does not interest me, nor do magical objects such as you might possess. We Dwarves mine our gold out of the mountains’ heart—what need have I of pale Æsir gold? Your head was wagered, and your head I shall have.”

  
Loki was visited by sudden inspiration. “Very well,” he said, with mock submission, “take my head. But, remember, do not touch my neck. My neck you shall not have.”

  
Brokk went before the throne and appealed to the All-Father, while the court gaped and chattered excitedly among themselves. Loki scorned them all. He had eyes only for Odin, who suddenly laughed and told Brokk that he’d been well and truly fooled, and that he had better choose another punishment.

  
Brokk’s pinched face paled with anger. “Very well, then, All-Father,” he said grimly. “I would teach the Lie-Smith a lesson. Have him come and kneel to me. If I cannot kill him, I would stop his mouth.” From his pocket he brought out a knife and a leather thong.

 ***

  
Everyone looked at Thor, waiting. Not a sound could be heard in the room.

  
Thor was speaking with his head in his hands, his voice subdued, broken. “Brokk wished to sew my brother’s lips shut. I could have stopped him, but I allowed it. I let him do it. And I watched it happen.”

 ***

  
The court was in an uproar, a hubbub of voices filled the Great Hall, and, just before Odin’s throne, Brokk stood facing them, waiting. Loki stood with Thor, the two of them far from everyone in the broad expanse of inlaid marble flooring that separated the throne from the gods and courtiers at their dining tables.

  
Thor was standing so close, he breathed heavily down Loki’s neck. Loki could smell his sweat and the alcohol on his breath. The greasy scent of roasted meat from the recent meal still persisted in the air. “Kneel, brother,” Thor said, slurring slightly, “and take your punishment. I will hold your arms so you will not falter.”

  
Loki spun around and spat in his face. “You will not touch me.” His voice was low and harsh as gravel in a wound.

  
Thor wiped at his face with one paw, like a faithful dog that knew not how he had offended. “You made a bad bargain,” he said sullenly, “and Father saved your life. You must be brave now.”

  
“As if I am not brave,” Loki whispered viciously. “What you really mean is ‘although I am _argr_.’”

  
“I did not say that.” Thor looked angry now, but Loki didn’t care.

  
“No, but Sif said it and started all this. Shall I tell the court who made me so? Shall I tell them all it was my brother?” He was raw everywhere, everywhere a wound. He had nothing left to lose. And then he did.

  
“Loki, no,” Thor said with fear in his eyes, real fear. “Please, Loki. No.” They always said “no,” his brother and his father. Always “no.” Until they needed him. Did they know how much he needed them to love him?

  
Loki felt words welling up in his throat, the words he would use to shame Thor, shame himself. Words, words, so many words. Insults, arguments, lies. Suddenly he was filled with disgust at everyone, at himself. They all wanted to stop Loki’s mouth, even Thor. Very well then, he would let them do it.

  
Loki had one gift left to give, and he gave it. He spared his brother.

  
He walked up to Brokk and dropped heavily to his knees, so close that he could smell the musty, ashen odor of Dwarven-kind, all stone dust and wood smoke, the scent of a people that lived in stone huts and mineshafts and spent their lives breaking rocks and working forges. Those twisted, callused hands reached for his lips and he suffered their touch, barely suppressing his revulsion.

  
The knife would not cut his flesh, and he smiled just a little to see that a Dwarf carried a knife of base metal, but the smile was a lie, and so was the calm, because inside, in his head, there was a man screaming, tearing his own flesh until it melted into nothingness.

  
Brokk brought out a stitching awl, meant for working leather, with a worn wooden handle and a straight metal tip. It had seen hard use and was not very sharp. Holding Loki’s upper lip between two fingers, he chose a spot and worked the metal through.

***

  
“It was horrible,” Thor breathed. “I was standing behind Loki, watching that Dwarf work. He was a monster. His hands were steady, and when a few drops of blood sprayed on his face, he paused to wipe them off with a rag. My brother’s blood.”

  
The others were leaning forward, their eyes riveted on Thor. The bottle and glasses sat forgotten on the table.

  
“Why didn’t I say something? Why didn’t I stop it?” Thor’s voice was ragged, broken.

  
“Why didn’t Loki stop it?” Stark asked. “Couldn’t he have turned Brokk into a toad and escaped?”

  
Thor shook his head. “He had tried to escape at the start, and I stopped him. He was young, and his magic was strong, but he was still learning, and it was no match for Father’s. But together—if we had both stood against Father, then perhaps....”

  
“I still don’t understand why he submitted to it,” Banner said.

  
“He did it for me,” said Thor, his voice breaking, his eyes red. He couldn’t tell them of Loki’s razor-sharp words to him on that night, couldn’t admit to Stark and the others that he had bedded Loki, while thinking Loki his brother. “And to prove something to Odin. Something Odin could never see.” He pushed the hair off his face with both hands. “Loki knows how to submit when he has to. For all his misdeeds, he is the bravest man I have ever known.”

  
Banner spoke tentatively. “Uh, Thor, no offense, but isn’t ‘brave’ sometimes just another word for ‘batshit crazy’?”

 ***

  
There was a strange intimacy between them as Brokk systematically ruined Loki’s mouth, and the court watched in an expectant hush. Loki could only see Brokk’s face, grown enormous by proximity, his beady black eyes, the worn, sunken cheeks, the turned-down slash of the lips, the swollen wasp-stings on his neck and eyelids. There was no trace of gloating on that face, unless it was in the upward tilt of the chin, a new glint in the ebony eyes of one who was used to being the perpetual observer, shunned and shoved away into a corner.

  
And, behind Brokk, Odin All-Father sat on his throne like a rock, watching, saying nothing. Nothing.

  
Brokk treated his grim task as he would any piece of work. He used his tools with familiarity and respect. When the flowing blood made Loki’s lips too slippery to hold, Brokk reached into his pocket and brought out a simple rag to wipe it away, but that act was performed as on an inanimate object, stolidly, without the least compassion. And yet Loki saw that Brokk knew how much pain he caused, how much humiliation. There was no happiness or humor or empathy in this creature. His mind was like a scale, weighing debt against payment, and when the scale was balanced he would carefully clean his tools, and put them away, and return to Svartalfheim satisfied.

  
Loki could barely endure the indescribable pain. The nausea. The taste of blood, and oiled metal, and leather in his mouth. The blood, flooding down his chin, running down his throat, perfusing his clothes. After the fourth puncture he had started trembling, and all his will couldn’t stop it. His hands, clasped tightly behind him, were numb and icy cold. He feared that he might faint, or cry out, or shove the Dwarf away, bespell him, bespell them all.

  
Instead, he waited out the moments until this ordeal would end. Now it was a matter of pride, pride and self-loathing. They were waiting for him to break. Odin was waiting for it, a little half smile on his face. Well, he could wait until eternity. Loki would not break. He would take this punishment that he deserved and throw it back in their faces, and then he would leave this place, and when he came back he would destroy them all.

***

  
“Finally, it was done,” Thor said. He held a shot of whiskey and turned it in his fingers slowly without looking at it. “Brokk threaded the thong through the final hole in Loki’s lips and tied it tight. Then he wiped the awl on a rag and put it in his pocket. He folded up the rag and stowed it carefully away. Then he turned and nodded to the All-Father and was on his way. None ever saw him in Asgard again.”

  
“Wow,” said Stark, a little breathlessly. “And I thought I had family drama.”

  
Thor went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “Brokk was gone, but Loki continued to kneel there before the All-Father, looking up at him, as Odin looked down. People began to whisper to each other, but Loki and Odin were still. I longed to go to him, but I was too ashamed. I understood by that time that I had betrayed him. I was so caught up in having the power of Mjolnir, in the desire to obey my father and be king of Asgard someday, that I had failed my brother.

  
“And then the laughter started. I don’t know why. There was much hatred of Loki in Asgard, certainly. And Brokk had taken a long time about his methodical work, so that people were beginning to grow impatient. But surely they had seen the blood on the marble floor. Surely they knew that they had witnessed something terrible. All I know is that it started as a few titters, but before long it was a huge wave of laughter, swelling out of the ranks of gods and courtiers.

  
“When Odin’s eyes rose to the court at the other end of the Great Hall, Loki finally stood, slipping a little in his own blood, and turned to look at me, to face the others. It was the first time they had really seen what Brokk had done.”

 ***

  
He had turned to show them his face, and their laughter ceased. They had only seen his back, but now they saw the truth of what had been done to him, and their faces reflected the horror of it, and their golden mirth turned to cries of disgust. Loki was glad of it, for he had had enough of gold forever. Gold always made him think of Asgard, its riches and its falsity, the love that seemed to glow brightly, but underneath lurked blood and pain and punishment.

  
Using all the strength he had left, he broke the leather thong with magic, while his hands were hanging at his sides, and pulled it out, stitch by stitch, and dropped it on the marble floor. He became invisible and paced through the Great Hall, leaving bloody footprints to show where he had gone. No one, not even Thor, not even Odin, moved to stop him.

  
And after he was gone, they picked up the leather thong soaked in his blood and named it. They called it Vartari. And that humble piece of Dwarven leather still sat in a cabinet of curiosities in Asgard, for all he knew.

  
Loki left the land of the Æsir for many years, and when he returned he was a stronger and more formidable mage, so that no one dared remind him of what had come to pass when last he had been in court. Loki seemed to have forgotten, perhaps to have forgiven, but there was a sharpness and a seriousness in his manner that had not been there before, and many whispered that he plotted against the throne, biding his time. And they were right.

***

  
Thor drank down the shot he held and poured another. He proffered the bottle to Hawkeye, who watched him in awe and simply shook his head. Banner accepted it and matched him.

  
“After Loki disappeared, Sif’s new golden hair turned dark because the sons of Ívaldi had not been paid. That is the end of the story.”

  
Thor sat back in his chair and took a deep breath. He looked worn, exhausted with the telling of his tale. He and the others watched silently as Stark slithered bonelessly out of his armchair and sprawled unconscious on the floor. Banner moved to check his pulse and put a pillow under his head.

  
“Dr. Banner,” Thor said suddenly, “I do not know whether Loki will live or die, but if I tell him something, is there a chance that he will hear me?”

  
Banner shrugged. “There’s always a chance.”

  
“Then I must apologize to him tonight. I should not have left it until now. Perhaps he can still hear me.” Picking up Mjolnir, he walked into the other room and stood at Loki’s bedside.

 ***

  
Loki’s mind still floated in a sea of branches, but he had begun to recognize that his spirit was yet present in his body. He felt the metal bracelets cold around his wrists.

  
_I will die in chains,_ he thought bitterly, not for the first time in his life. _In chains, and alone._

  
But someone was there with him. A hand touched his. Thor. He heard Mjolnir sing to him. But why did it sing? He could no longer work magic, but perhaps it still knew him because he had been present at the hammer’s forging, a raven on the roof, peering in.

  
“I am sorry, brother,” came Thor’s voice. “I have learned much here on Midgard, and I have thought much about the past. I am sorry I let Brokk torture you. I am ashamed that I did not stand up to Father for you. And most of all I regret making you _argr_ and then shaming you. There was no shame in it.”

  
No shame in _ergi_ , in being _argr_? This was a changed Thor indeed. Something touched his hand. A tear? From Thor, a tear? How rare. Loki strained to open his eyes, but still he floated below the surface of some bright barrier.

  
Mjolnir sang. Thor had told their story, his story, the one Loki had hidden from for many years. And those who had heard it this night had not laughed. They had not laughed, and somehow the story was changing as he thought about it, losing its bright, brittle, golden edge and fading into the dark well of the past.

  
Mjolnir sang, and Loki listened well. It sang of pain and loss and love, of battles won and wars lost, of a forge and the steady beat of metal on metal, on flesh. Of the susurration of blood splattering on marble. Whispers and laughter. Soft firelight playing over two bodies entwined on a thick pile of furs. _Please, brother, let me join with you. I desire it so dearly, and I know you wish it too. No one need ever know._ Thor was eloquent when he needed to be. With his hands and body. With his cock.

  
Mjolnir glowed, its runes fire-bright, and somehow Loki could see them dancing before his eyes in a moving script, the letters flowing like molten metal fired in a forge, and they spread across his body as if _he_ were being forged, playing over his skin like firelight and the ardent hands of a lover. They wrote him, fitted tight around his frame like a second skin. A weave of runes. A glamour, but not just any glamour.

  
Mjolnir sang the song of its forging, long ago, in a simple hut in Nidavellir. A wasp buzzed too near the fire and was singed, and a trace of what it was passed into the molten metal: curiosity, passion, mischief. Perfect, Mjolnir would have had no need of Thor. Perfect, it would have existed apart from men. Its slight dissymmetry allowed it to act in the imperfect worlds of Yggdrasil.

  
The flaw in Mjolnir was Loki. The hammer’s song called to Loki’s bound magic. His shoulder tingled, and from the place that Hel had bitten him whispered green-gold light.

  
And all at once Loki knew what Odin had done to him. He laughed.

  
“I’ve been such a fool.” His words echoed in the empty room. Loki opened his eyes in the dimness. Thor was gone. The chains were snug around his wrists and his hand was wet where Thor had wept over it.

  
Loki smiled to himself. Silently, with his will alone, he tugged at the edges of the spell that bound him.

 ***

  
Banner eased Thor down on the couch, where the big man passed out instantly, before returning to lock the door to Loki’s room. Thor murmured restlessly and seemed to be trying to bat something away from his face.

  
“It’s okay, Thor,” Banner said awkwardly. He had never been any good at comfort, despite all the times he’d needed it himself. “Go to sleep now.” He fetched another blanket and covered the man. He had already spread blankets on Stark and Hawkeye, who were sprawled haphazardly on the floor and on a couch. Hawkeye slept like the dead, while Stark was snoring softly. Banner looked them over thoughtfully.

  
“The night I drank the God of Thunder under the table,” he said softly to himself, “and no one was awake to see it.”

  
“I am awake, sir,” said Jarvis.

  
Banner laughed. “Thank you, Jarvis.” He looked at his sleeping companions. “Jarvis?”

  
“Yes, sir? May I be of service?”

  
“Can you define a word for me? It’s probably ancient Scandinavian.”

  
“Of course, sir. What is the word?”

  
Banner remembered how it was pronounced, but he didn’t know how to spell it. “ _Argr_? I heard Thor say it to Loki a few minutes ago.”

  
“Ah, yes. “’ _Argr_ ’ is an adjective, literally ‘cock-lover,’ describing a man who practices the womanly art of magic, or who accepts the passive role in sexual relations with another man. The noun ‘ _ergi_ ’ signifies ‘unmanliness.’ Both are pejorative.”

  
‘Wow. Thank you, Jarvis.” Banner thought on that a moment. “I think I’m sorry I asked.” Turning out the lights, he lumbered off to bed.

  
In the morning, Loki was gone.

 

Epilogue

 

“I’ve called this meeting to discuss what happened with Loki,” Stark began. It was several days after Loki’s disappearance. Natasha had returned from Ukraine, and Cap had almost recovered from his resentment over the alcoholic evening.

  
Everyone had gathered in the lounge in Stark’s private quarters. Bottles of liquor and soft drinks were scattered across the coffee table. A coffee maker on the bar hissed softly. Banner and Stark sat on one of the couches, while Cap and Thor stood off to one side, arms folded, taking almost identical poses. Romanoff sat on a low hassock by the fireplace and Hawkeye crouched at her side.

  
“So, everyone,” Stark continued, “get a drink, and we’ll start in a minute.”

  
He rose and poured a cup of coffee, offering it to Cap, who accepted it. He poured another and got no takers, so he took it himself and returned to the couch. The tension in the room was palpable.

  
“Well,” Stark said, “we still don’t know what happened to allow Loki to escape, but it seems as if he has somehow managed to get around Odin’s punishment and leave New York. Was he taken, or did he escape? What should our next move be?”

  
“What I’d like to know,” said Romanoff with more than a hint of anger, “is what you thought you were doing, getting dead drunk when you had Loki here. How could you think—”

  
“We’ve been over this before,” Stark snapped. “It happened after hours. We would have been asleep when he escaped anyway. And somehow he, or someone else, stopped Jarvis from seeing that he was gone until the morning. I don’t know what happened, Nat. I don’t know if he got his powers back or how he got out of here.”

  
“Your security sucks, that’s how,” Romanoff exploded. “If you’d let me ask Fury, we could get a S.H.I.E.L.D. team in here and fix it for you.”

  
“No, and no,” Stark said pointedly. “We’ve had this discussion, Agent Badinoff. We’re done.”

  
“I think I know what happened,” Thor put in morosely. “It must have been the being Loki made a deal with to get the Chitauri army. Maybe they were looking for him and they finally found him when he had no powers.”

  
“Or maybe someone was using magic to help him somehow,” Banner suggested. “He was really sick—many people would have died from that pneumonia. And the wounds on his arms and chest were pretty bad, but they were healing more completely than they should have, with no scars. Did he know any magicians here, years ago? Maybe someone rescued him.”

  
The lights went out.

  
And when they came back on, Loki was lounging on the arm of the couch with one foot on the seat, holding a drink in his hand.

  
“You’re both wrong,” he said with a Cheshire cat smile.

  
They all jumped up from wherever they had been and surrounded him, staring. He rose lazily and faced them. He was dressed in Asgardian garb, and looked much as he had before the battle of New York, except that his hair had grown down below his shoulders.

  
“None of you imagined I would find a way to get my powers back?” He clicked his tongue in disapproval. “How poorly you think of me.”

  
“How did you do it?” Hawkeye asked belligerently. “Did you have help?”

  
Thor reached roughly out to take Loki’s arm and the image dissolved.

  
“Why, yes, I did,” Loki drawled from behind them. “I had help from the Queen of the Underworld and from Thor, though he didn’t know it. And, speaking of Thor, I would like a few minutes alone with my brother.”

  
“Anything you have to say to me, you can say before my friends,” Thor said staunchly.

  
Loki laughed. “Are you sure of that, brother? Anything? What about family business?”

  
Thor looked around awkwardly. “Yes, on second thought, perhaps it would be better if we spoke alone.”

  
“What is it you don’t want us to know, Thor?” Cap asked gravely.

  
“We need some answers,” Natasha said, facing Loki squarely. “How did you get out of the tower?”

  
“As soon as I understood what held me here, I was able to escape it,” Loki said, with seeming graciousness. “But as you know nothing of magic, any explanation would be lost on you. And, now, if you don’t mind, I would like to speak to Thor.”

  
“In a minute,” said Stark. Loki turned to face him. “Can you answer one thing for me?” Loki inclined his head, seeming to acquiesce. “Why did you tell the man at the store to call me? Why not just let Coulson take you to the hospital?”

  
Loki grinned. “I like this—given the chance to ask me a question, you make it about yourself. You see, you always seemed to want to keep me alive. I believe I interest you. Given a choice between putting myself in your hands or in those of a man I killed....” He trailed off. “Well, you can see why I thought you might be the wiser choice.”

  
Stark shook his head and scoffed. “Yeah, I see it. You figured you could manipulate me because I had hopes that you might change.” He looked Loki in the eyes. “You didn’t learn a thing here, did you?”

  
Loki shrugged. “Perhaps,” he said seriously, and with some hesitation, as if against his inclination, “perhaps I learned more than you think.”

  
“Thanks for that,” Stark said, laughing ruefully. “I should have known better than to ask.” His laughter faded quickly. “Listen, you owe me one, so don’t come back here for a while,” he said, without any particular emphasis. “Give us a rest.”

  
Loki laughed. Stark walked out of the room, and the others followed, glancing at Thor with uncertainty and at Loki with mistrust.

  
When Loki and Thor were alone, they stood facing each other silently. Thor started to speak, but Loki held up a finger to stop him. He swiped one hand lazily through the air.

  
“What are you doing?” Thor asked angrily.

  
“Your friends are all in the other room listening,” Loki said, laughing. “Do you want that? I just put a small hex on Jarvis.”

  
“You haven’t hurt him?” Thor asked, appalled.

  
“No, I wouldn’t hurt Jarvis,” Loki laughed, “the metal man’s dear friend. I’ve just found something to distract him for a few minutes.”

  
“What?”

  
Loki shrugged. “Poetry. It was in his memory. A directory called ‘English Romantic Poetry.’ I don’t know what it is, but he’ll be reading it aloud until we’re done.”

  
“I wandered lonely as a cloud,” Jarvis recited expressively, “That floats on high o’er dales and hills....” Loki waved his hand again and lowered the volume to a murmur.

  
“At least your friends will be entertained while they wait,” Loki said, grinning.

  
“What do you want, Loki?” Thor asked warily.

  
“Why, I thought you might want to know what Odin did to me, and how I escaped from it,” Loki said, “but if you’d rather not....”

  
“Of course I want to know,” Thor said, irritated.

  
“It was clever,” Loki began. “I have to hand it to him, although part of it was Dwarven work, of course.” He spoke the adjective with a touch of contempt.

  
“Dwarven work is intricate and fine,” Thor said, intending to provoke.

  
“Except for their leather work,” said Loki, his smile gone now, looking into Thor’s eyes. “That is cruel and twisted.”

  
Thor shook his head and looked down. “I am sorry, brother.”

  
“Odin lied. He did not strip my powers. Instead, he bound me with a rare kind of glamour. A normal illusion I would soon have found my way out of, but this was a reweaving of my very being. The Norns must have been involved as well, or at least enjoined to silence.

  
“When we of Asgard come to Midgard, we carry with us a slice of our world, so that the laws of our world still apply. So that I can perform magic, so that Mjolnir still obeys your hand. But this glamour bound that slice of Asgard so close to me, so tightly, that all I felt was a mortal self that had been written over me. It was a sort of invisible chain mail of runes to bind me. And the really clever part was that the more I believed myself mortal, the more mortal I became. In truth, I would eventually have become mortal and died at the end of a brief life span.

  
“I believe it was in that same way Odin changed me from Jotun to Æsir when I was a child. Only scant traces remain of my Jotun body. I am more Æsir than Jotun, and yet a sort of hybrid of the two. Thus he tried to make me mortal, and nearly succeeded.”

  
Thor was almost afraid to interrupt. Loki had never spoken as frankly to him about these things. “It was a cruel device,” he ventured. “But how did it fail?”

  
“Hel foiled it. I thought she wished to kill me, but she was cleverer than that. She could have killed me where I stood, but she would not have had my powers, bound as they were. She bit me on the shoulder, hoping that she could broach the glamour with her dark magic.”

  
“But that happened weeks ago,” Thor said.

  
“And then Mjolnir called to me, to my magical self. And at the gash Hel made, the glamour opened wide enough for me to see what it was, to rend it.”

  
“Mjolnir called to you?” Thor asked, confused.

  
“I, too, have a bond with your beloved,” Loki teased, “having been present when she was made.”

  
They stood together thinking, gazing openly at each other, while softly in the background Jarvis recited poetry.

  
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:/ Look on my works, ye Mighty....”

  
“What will you do now?” Thor asked.

  
“All ways are open to me,” Loki said, eyes sparkling with anticipation. “I will travel through the branches of Yggdrasil and do as I wish.”

  
“And will you never come back to Midgard?”

  
“I might. If there is something here to draw me to it.” His smile was seductive, inviting.

  
Thor reflected Loki’s smile sadly back to him. He sighed and shook his head. “Since you have been in exile here I have thought deeply about the past. About your first exile from Asgard.”

  
“Have you? And have you thought about what came before it? I think you left some things out when you told your friends our story.”

  
Thor met his eyes again. “They were not left out of my thoughts.”

  
“Ah,” said Loki, pleased.

  
“I did not know that you wished to remember those times. When you returned to Asgard after your exile, you never came to me again.” Thor hung his head, embarrassed.

  
“Were you surprised?” Loki’s finger touched Thor’s jaw, lifting it so that their eyes met.

  
“No.” As Thor said the word, Loki took a step towards him, taking Thor’s shoulders into his hands.

  
“Were you sorry?” Loki’s lips were so close that Thor could feel his breath.

  
“Loki....” Thor said warningly.

  
“Were you?” The lips touched his, feather-light.

  
“Yes,” Thor breathed against them.

  
Loki pressed his lips to Thor’s and then withdrew. “You are unsure of me.”

  
“Shouldn’t I be?” Thor laid a hand flat against Loki’s chest as though to push him away.

  
“Always.” Loki smiled. “But this is different. You are thinking of your mortal.”

  
“She has a name. Jane.”

  
“Do you think of me when you’re with her? With Jane?”

  
“Loki....” Again Thor’s tone warned him, and again Loki ignored it.

  
Loki’s lips pressed full against his, coaxing his mouth open. Thor resisted for a moment and then, with a sigh into Loki’s mouth, relaxed into the kiss, allowing Loki’s insistent tongue to move where it would.

 ***

  
Crowded into a video room on the same floor, the Avengers stared at Thor and Loki on the screen as they heard Jarvis reciting Byron.

  
“She walks in beauty, like the night/ Of cloudless climes and starry skies....”

  
Stark ran a hand through his hair, leaving it standing straight up.

  
“What the hell is going on here?” he asked.

  
“Uh, guys, I guess I should have told you, but there’s a history there.” Banner told them what he had overheard the night Loki escaped.

  
“Seriously?” Stark asked rhetorically. “Thor and Loki?”

  
“Apparently,” Banner confirmed, “a long time ago.”

  
“But that’s...that’s....” Cap turned away rather than finish his sentence. “I can’t watch this.”

  
“Don’t get distracted,” Stark said suddenly. “Loki is sending us a message.”

  
“I agree,” said Romanoff. “He wants us to see this, but not to hear what they’re saying.”

  
“He’s back, and he’s pulled Thor into his orbit again,” Hawkeye added grimly.

 ***

  
As the kiss broke, their foreheads touched. Both men were a little breathless. Loki’s hand cupped Thor’s face, caressing him. Thor’s hand was at the nape of Loki’s neck, tangled in his hair.

  
“Loki, I have made no promises to Jane, but it is understood that I, that we—”

  
Loki’s finger moved against Thor’s lips. “Shhhh,” he soothed softly. “We have time. I will be there when you are ready.”

  
Loki’s hands moved down Thor’s bare arms and fondled them briefly, tightening in a last caress. Letting go, he stepped back and disappeared.

  
In the background, Jarvis recited on and on. “Oh, Wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being/ Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead/ Are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing....”

  
“Loki!” Thor cried. There was no answer.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this story as much as I enjoyed writing it. I'm considering a sequel.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoy "Banished." The sequel is called "Shattered," and can be found here on AO3.


End file.
